Tesco chief reaps harvest with focus on food

As a downpayment on that plan, Tesco said on Wednesday that it would pay its first dividend in three years, as it unveiled stronger first-half sales. Three former Tesco employees are standing trial for accounting fraud; the men deny wrongdoing and the court case is expected to go on until January. Despite its progress under Mr Lewis, Tesco is still a shadow of the dominant force that surged across British retail parks and town centres during the 14-year tenure of Sir Terry Leahy that lasted until 2010. Mr Lewis's predecessor, Philip Clarke, managed about double that level of annualised profit even in his worst year - not counting the record-breaking £6.3bn loss that Tesco unveiled shortly after he was ousted. "The bear case - and I completely disagree with it - is that there isn't enough momentum behind the UK recovery for the UK profit to keep going up," says Bruno Monteyne, a former Tesco executive and now an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

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