Tesco prepares US exit

Tesco plc,Britains largest retailer by sales,is to pull out of the US,selling off its lossmaking Fresh amp; Easy supermarket chain at a cost of 1.2 billion after it failed to transfer its winning formula from the UK to the western states.

The writedown from the US misadventure helped send the supermarket groups net profit for the year down 96 per cent to 120 million 183 million.

Fresh amp; Easy which employs about 5,000 people and has about 200 stores in Arizona,California and Nevada failed to make money for Tesco despite extensive research into what Americans wanted to buy and how they want to shop.