Tesco boss Dave Lewis in shock departure

Tesco has announced that its chief executive Dave Lewis is stepping down after five years in the role.

Mr Lewis said the decision was “personal one” and Tesco chairman John Allan said he had accepted the resignation with “regret”.

He will be replaced by Ken Murphy, who has held senior positions at Walgreens Boots Alliance.

His departure was announced as Tesco reported a 6.7% rise in first-half profits to £494m.

Mr Lewis said: “I believe the tenure of a chief executive should be a finite one and that now is the right time to pass the the baton. The turnaround is complete, we have delivered all the metrics we set ourselves”.

He took the helm at a tumultuous time for the supermarket group, announcing shortly after he took over in 2014 that the retailer had been overstating its profits.

The company subsequently revealed a loss of £6.4bn, the biggest ever suffered by a UK retailer

Since then Mr Lewis has set about reducing costs, with the latest of round job cuts announced in August when it said 4,500 staff in 153 Tesco Metro stores would lose their roles.

He also tried to take on the discounters, Germany’s Aldi and Lidl, by opening Jacks, a discount chain with mixed results.