(Bloomberg) -- Tesco Plc's management overhaul expanded as Chief Financial Officer Alan Stewart announced plans to retire next year after helping to guide the U.K.'s biggest retailer back to health from a massive accounting scandal.
The move comes as Chief Executive Officer Dave Lewis prepares to hand over to former Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. executive Ken Murphy. Tesco said it will search internally and externally for a successor to Stewart, 60.
The shares traded 1.8% lower Tuesday morning in London.
The CFO joined Tesco in 2014, when Lewis became CEO. Under their management, the retailer bounced back from the accounting scandal, streamlined its domestic business with thousands of job cuts and pulled back from some international markets. Stewart's moves to shore up the balance sheet have helped lift the retailer's credit rating back to investment grade.
“Along with Dave Lewis, he is a key component in effectively saving Tesco, something that the group's shareholders will no doubt acknowledge,” Shore Capital analyst Clive Black said in a note.
Now the company is wrestling with the challenges of Covid-19, which has boosted grocery demand but required supermarkets to impose social distancing measures, while hastening a shift to online shopping. Soon, retailers will have to turn their attention back to Brexit.
Murphy is set to take over as CEO in October. Stewart will retire next April, Tesco said.
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