Tesco rushes in new finance director after reporting disaster sinks shares

Tesco has announced its new finance director is to start the job immediately, bringing forward the appointment by two months after it yesterday revealed it had overstated half-year profits by £250m.

The company said in a stock exchange announcement Alan Stewart, who joins from Marks & Spencer, would start today rather than on the 1 December as previously planned. Stewart - a veteran who has spent years in the industry and also had stints at HSBC and WH Smith - has been parachuted in ahead of schedule after the supermarket giant yesterday revealed it had overstated its expected profits for the six months to 29 August by a quarter of a billion pounds. It said the error was largely due to the accelerated recognition of commercial income and delayed accrual of costs. In a conferen...