Tesco, the UK‘s largest retailer by market share, will close its six remaining Homeplus stores in its home market, waving goodbye to its non-food retail business and potentially axing around 450 jobs.
Tesco said yesterday that stores in Bristol, Bracknell, Nottingham, Denton, Bromborough and Preston will close towards the end of June this year.
“We’ve taken the difficult decision to close our remaining six Homeplus stores. Our priority is now to explain what this announcement means for our colleagues and wherever possible, offer them alternative roles with Tesco,” said a spokesman for the big Four grocer.
Six Homeplus stores were included in 43 store closures announced by Tesco in January.
Dave Lewis, who joined Tesco in September last year (from Unilever where he was nicknamed ‘Drastic Dave‘), is actioning a strategy to cut costs and sell assets as he takes on the challenge of turning around the group’s finances. Lewis is fighting back against declining market share, debt-rating downgrades and an accounting scandal.
