Tesco boss Dave Lewis said further investment to turn around the troubled British supermarket could see its £1.4 billion trading profit fall further in the current year after already more than halving in 2014/15.

“To rebuild our profit this year even back to the level of what we achieved last year isn’t without its challenges,” Lewis told reporters after property writedowns dragged the group to a statutory annual loss of £6.4 billion (€8.9bn) on Wednesday. “Our aspiration is to maintain the profit level at what it was last year but you should understand that if we feel we have to make further investments to keep the momentum of the business going ... we would,” Lewis said.

Prior to Wednesday’s update, analysts on average expected Tesco to post a trading profit of £1.48 billion for its 2015/16 fiscal year. Lewis also told reporters that Tesco would still prefer to raise cash from asset sales to help reduce debt, rather than launch a rights issue.

Reuters