Tesco boosts retail experience with new board members

UNDER-FIRE supermarket giant Tesco has re-stocked its board with two new non-executive directors.

Richard Cousins and Mikael Ohlsson will join the board on 1 November as part of the firm’s initial bid to deal with the ramifications of its toxic £250m accounting overstatement and a series of issues that has seen its share price plummet and £20bn wiped off its value.

Cousins is currently chief executive of catering group Compass, while Ohlsson is the former CEO and president of flat-pack specialists IKEA.

Tesco chairman Richard Broadbent said: “Mikael and Richard have been updated on and are wholly supportive of the steps being taken by the new management team to rebuild trust in Tesco and to focus all the resources of the business to deliver value to our customers.”

News of the appointments follows more revelations about Britain’s largest grocer at the weekend, this time about it taking delivery of £31.3m corporate jet.

The Financial Times reported on Saturday that the Gulfstream 550 long-range jet had already been ordered early last year during the reign of ousted chief executive Philip Clarke.

The retailer was blasted by irate shareholders last year when it was discovered the grocer had a fleet of four executive jets.

A Tesco spokesman has said all its aircraft operated were in the process of being sold.
On Wednesday the FCA, the UK’s financial watchdog, launched a full investigation into the accounting scandal.