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 16^th, 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%.