Tesco chairman to step down amidst claims of misconduct

John Allan – Chairman of Tesco PLC (LON: TSCO) will step down at the company’s annual meeting with the investors on June 16th, the supermarket chain confirmed on Friday.

Allan denies claims of misconduct

The announcement arrives only days after a report said four women have alleged Allan of inappropriate conduct.

Allan has strongly denied three of these claims and apologised for the fourth which was a comment he made on the appearance of a female member of the CBI staff.

Nonetheless, Tesco said today that his tenure was bound to end shortly. The stock market news arrives about a month after the multinational retailer said its pre-tax profit halved in fiscal 2023 (read more).

Tesco shares are still up more than 15% versus the start of the year.

Byron Grote to serve as interim chair

Tesco PLC also confirmed that it has already started the process of finding a successor and that a name will be announced soon.

In the meantime, Byron Grote – its Senior Independent Director will take on the role of interim chair at the annual shareholder meeting. Commenting on today’s development, Grote said:

While we have received no complaints about John’s conduct and made no findings of wrongdoing, these allegation risk becoming a distraction to Tesco.

Allan has been the Chairman of the grocery chain since 2015. Wall Street has a consensus “overweight” rating on Tesco shares that currently pay a dividend yield of just over 4.0%.

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