Tesco boss paid £3m for returning retailer to profit

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 16 May, 2016

Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis has been paid £4.6m in salary and bonus for turning around the fortunes of the supermarket giant.

It has been revealed that Lewis was paid £4.6m including a £3m bonus last year, for returning the retailer to profit after a disastrous 2014, when the company lost £6.4bn.

The UK's largest supermarket group has experienced an upturn in sales, posting a £162m profit for the year to 27 February - far better than the multi-billion pound loss for the previous 12 months.

In a video released with the annual report, Mr Lewis said it had been "a good start in difficult circumstances" to the year.

However, Tesco shares fell sharply last month after Lewis warned that profit improvement would slow in the first half of this year.

The stock has fallen by almost a third in the past 12 months and declined slightly on Friday to 155p.

Lewis joined in September 2014 from Unilever to take over from Philip Clarke who was sacked.

Last month, Tesco posted its first quarterly sales growth in nearly three years signalling that the supermarket giant's turnaround was gathering momentum.

At the time, Lewis said: "We have made significant progress against the priorities we set out in October 2014. We have regained competitiveness in the UK with significantly better service, a simpler range, record levels of availability and lower and more stable prices. Our balance sheet is stronger and we are making good progress in rebuilding trust in Tesco and our investment case."

The UK's like-for-like sales growth was up 0.9%.

Volumes of sales were up 3.3% for the fourth quarter, while UK transactions increased 2.8%.

Tesco's full year operating profit for the 2015/2016 year was £944 million, beating analysts expectations of £932 million for the year.

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