As Tesco reports awful results, we look at whether its shares now represent a bargain or whether there's more bad news to come.
Tesco confirmed investors' worst fears by releasing a truly rotten set of results this morning.
Looking at Tesco's car-crash results for the 26 weeks ending 23rd August, there is nothing to give current shareholders any cheer. Worldwide group sales excluding petrol were down 4.5% to £34 billion, with UK like-for-like sales down 4.6%, partly thanks to the rise of Aldi and Lidl.
Tesco's underlying profit before tax collapsed by almost half, down 46.6% to £783 million. This was largely due to a huge 55.9% plunge in UK trading profit. On a brighter note, trading profit for Europe was up 38.2% to £76 million.
As a result, underlying earnings per share almost halved, down 46.8% to 7.71p, with statutory profit before tax plummeting 91.9% to £112 million. What's more, Tesco is cutting investment in its stores, with capital expenditure falling by more than 20% to £1 billion.
Another major problem for Tesco is that, whatever twists and turns its strategy takes, its overall share of the grocery market continues to decline. According to market researcher Kantar Worldpanel, Tesco market share slid to 28.8% in the 12 weeks to 12th October. Although this share remains by far the UK's largest, it is down from 30.1% for the same period of 2013.
The good news for shoppers is that, as Tesco and its major rivals engage in yet another supermarket war, the prices of everyday staples such as milk and vegetables are coming down. This means reduced profit margins for Tesco and other grocers though, suggesting that Tesco's overall performance may get worse before it gets better.
A £263 million black hole
A month ago, Tesco's share price dived 8% after it admitted overstating its previous half-year profit by around £250 million. Today, the supermarket giant revealed the results of an emergency inquiry, which identified a £263 million black hole at the UK's biggest supermarket, created by wrongly bringing forward (and occasionally pushing back) income from suppliers.
Of this £263 million, £118 million relates to this year, £70 million to last year and £75 million to previous years. So for at least two years, Tesco's accounting practices have been somewhat dubious, to put it mildly.
As a result, Tesco's under-fire chairman, Sir Richard Broadbent, is to exit the group. In addition, Tesco will withhold millions of pounds in severance payments and bonuses for ex-chief executive Phil Clarke and ex-finance director Laurie McIlwee until this investigation is concluded.
There may be more trouble ahead
It is still early days for Tesco's new broom Dave Lewis, who has yet to reveal his hand by announcing his new strategy to turn around the retail juggernaut. Tesco is also refusing to give any profit guidance for its full financial year. Clive Black, analyst at Shore Capital, commented: "We can never recall a period so damaging to the reputation of the company as the first half of 2014/15."
Even worse, Tesco's reputation for surefootedness has taken a huge knock of late, not helped by the group taking delivery this month of a £31 million Gulfstream private jet ordered by former boss Phil Clarke. Mr. Lewis could do worse than put this executive plaything up for sale as soon as possible.
Just three weeks ago famed investor Warren Buffett admitted that taking a 3%-plus stake in Tesco was "a huge mistake". With the 'Oracle of Omaha' turning negative on Tesco, others will be sure to follow.
Then again, as any gambler will tell you, just as winning streaks come to an end, so too do losing streaks. If and when Tesco get its act together and starts competing successfully Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl, it could once again become an international powerhouse.
Is Tesco worth a punt?
Clearly, at some point, Tesco shares are going to become so overwhelmingly cheap that they become a bargain buy. The big question is whether they are already at this stage.
As I write, Tesco's share price is down over 5% at around 174p. This values the group at a mere £14.1 billion, down almost two-thirds from its peak above £40 billion. This puts its shares on a forward price-earnings ratio (PER) of 9.8, which is some way below the FTSE 100 index's PER of around 13.
After chopping its dividend by three-quarters, Tesco shares offer a modest forecast dividend yield around 3.5%, which is broadly in line with the blue-chip average. For me, Tesco's price writing and dividend yield just aren't tempting enough to take a sizeable punt on any imminent recovery, so I cannot recommend a purchase. If you already hold Tesco shares, it may be worth holding fire rather than selling. In the medium term, there should be more upside than downside.
But until we see Dave Lewis's grand plan to turn around the group, Tesco will continue to struggle. Given the enormous scale of the problems its new executives face, Tesco's woes are likely to continue for some time.
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