29th Oct 2014 12:16
LONDON (Alliance News) - The Serious Fraud Office is poised to launch a formal criminal probe into Tesco PLC's recent GBP263 million profit overstatement, Sky News reported Wednesday.
Sky News City Editor Mark Kleinman said he has learned that the agency could confirm as soon as this week that it is opening an inquiry, adding to separate investigations by the City regulator and the accounting watchdog. The SFO is understood to have notified Tesco of its intention to formally investigate the issue in recent days, he added.
An SFO spokeswoman declined to comment to Alliance News, reiterating only that the agency is following developments at Tesco. The retailer also declined to comment.
Britain's largest supermarket chain last week said Deloitte had completed its investigation into the overstatement of the half-year profit expectation and confirmed an impact of GBP263 million, slightly more than the GBP250 million impact the retailer had announced last month. It said GBP118 million related to this year's first-half trading profit, about GBP70 million to the last financial year and about GBP75 million to years before that, although it did not say just how far back the issues went.
The struggling retailer is still currently being investigated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority to determine why the overstatement occurred in the beginning.
Tesco shares are trading 1.9% higher at 173.05 pence Wednesday midday.
http://news.sky.com/story/1362683/sfo-launches-criminal-probe-into-tesco-crisis
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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