• Home
  • News
  • Retail
  • Tesco to quit South Korea

Tesco to quit South Korea

By Don-Alvin Adegeest

loading...

Scroll down to read more

Tesco's Florence and Fred fashion label may be loved in the UK, but the supermarket giant is expected to finalise the sale of its chain in South Korea.

Tesco will sell its South Korean portfolio to local private equity firm MBK Partners for 4.3 billion pounds, marking the end of one of the retailer’s most successful overseas experiments.

The sale is one of Asia’s largest consumer retail deals ever and is seen as a way of funding Tesco’s turnaround plan to cut debt and reverse losses at home.

Last year, Tesco issued four profit warnings and was involved in an accounting scandal that revealed a 263 million pounds hole in its books.

The supermarket giant began trading in South Korea in 1999 through a joint venture with Samsung, one of the country’s biggest businesses that helped gain traction and trust.

Tesco