Tesco: Very Little Helps

http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21649426-britains-biggest-retailer-announces-worst-results-sector-has-ever-seen-very-little

This article discusses how Tesco, on April 22nd, made their announcement, informing everyone of their bad news and how poorly they preformed in the past year.  The article states, "Tesco made the largest pre-tax loss, of £6.4 billion ($10.4 billion), in British retail history, eight times as much as the previous record, set by Morrisons last year. This was also the sixth-largest loss in the country’s corporate history".  The article goes on to talk about how most of the loss was due to the fall in property value of Tesco's British stores.  This shows how many consumers are more interested in making purchases online, rather than going into the actual bricks and mortar stores.  Later, the article talks about how the CEO of Tesco, David Lewis hopes that now that the company has hit rock bottom, they will finally be able to grow as a company and start making money again.  Although Mr. Lewis' talk discussed many of the issues and down-turns the company is experiencing, he did mention some positive things.  First, the Tesco Bank is still performing very well.  And secondly, although profits of Tesco in Britain dropped dramatically, they did not drop as much over Europle, showing that the global expansion of Tesco was a good idea.  

The article concludes with how the Tesco brand will try to rise back into power and make more money again in the future.  They want to become more like Aldi and cut prices dramatically.  While this initially could hurt their profit, ultimately, this will attract more customers.