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Tesco has made £3 billion of profits in two years,
while shareholders receive £1 billion share buyback
bonanza
Tesco has a 27 per cent share of the UK supermarket sector which
makes it Britain’s biggest supermarket. This year’s figures were
announced today by the stock exchange. Although down on last
year’s record total of £2 billion pre-tax profits, today’s
figures nonetheless mean that in the last two years Britain’s
most important food retailer has gouged out profits from its
customers totalling £3 billion.
Like previous years, shareholders have been rewarded with
astonishing bonuses. In 2021/22 a total of £704 million was paid
in dividends and last July the company also launched another
big payday for shareholders in
its £1 billion share buyback scheme. This is the golden
corporate gift that keeps on giving without end.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Tesco’s
profits are another example of excessive profiteering fired up by
astonishing corporate greed. It’s this rampant profiteering which
is driving inflation, and cranking up the cost of living crisis
for workers and their families.
“How can it be that at a time when millions of are
struggling to feed their families Britain’s biggest supermarket
is profiteering as never before. What sort of country have we
become? Frankly, the latest results are
obscene.
“There has been an abject failure in leadership from
the government who have done absolutely nothing to reduce these
staggeringly excessive profits of supermarkets like
Tesco.”
ENDS
Notes to the editors:
Tesco’s bumper
profits are further evidence that the UK’s supermarkets are
profiting from greedflation, Unite’s research has revealed that
the profit margins of the UK’s supermarkets has increased by 89
per cent since 2019.
Food inflation rose to 18.2
per cent in February and is at its highest rate for 45
years.
