Tesco sells up Poland to focus on its UK business

The supermarket company Tesco has been giving up its firms in international markets to focus on its UK businesses. Its latest attempt is the sale of its Polish operations to a Danish group.

The biggest supermarket chain in Britain revealed that selling its 301 stores, distribution centres, and head office in Poland would give it a net total of £165m. These assets will be acquired by Salling Group, which also owns the Netto Group. The proceeds of this transaction will be used for “general corporate purposes”. Tesco had struggled to gain market share in Poland, and it had higher costs relative to competitors. Now, it advanced that it is going to keep trying to sell 19 stores that are not included in the deal.

This move has resulted in Ireland and central European businesses in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia as the only major non-UK operations remaining. During these past few years, Tesco has stopped operations in Japan, South Korea, the US and Turkey. Most recently, it sold its south-east Asian stores in Thailand and Malaysia for $10.6bn (£8.5bn) in cash.

Speaking about this decision, the Tesco chief executive, Dave Lewis, said: “We have seen significant progress in our business in central Europe but continue to see market challenges in Poland”.

Tesco is focussing on its central Europe operations