Tesco staff earn £4,000 bonus

TESCO is giving its staff a £220m bonus, thought to be the biggest ever reward handout by a British company.

Almost 150,000 employees will share in the windfall, reaping an average of £4,000 each, after the company made record profits last year. Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy gets £2m, taking his total package to £3m this year.

A Tesco spokesman said: 'It's been a great performance by the whole team and, as these figures show, everybody shares in that success.'

Tesco last month became the first British retailer to push profits through the £2bn barrier. Britain's biggest food retailer saw its profits surge by 20% to £2.03bn.

Since it overtook Sainsbury's in the mid-Nineties, Tesco has grown at a phenomenal rate. Its tills take £1 of every £8 spent by consumers in this country.

As well as dominating the food retail scene, its rapid expansion in non-food areas such as pharmacy, electrical goods, entertainment and financial services means it is putting the squeeze on rivals such as Boots and WHSmith. Tesco's Florence and Fred and Cherokee clothing labels are now the fastest-growing business in the fashion industry.

The group also has a large overseas business, with operations in eastern Europe and Asia. A fifth of its £37.1bn sales last year came from outside Britain.

While the rest of the high street suffers from the consumer spending squeeze, Tesco is showing no signs of a slowdown and Sir Terry believes it still has room for substantial growth in Britain. Although it controls about a third of the food retail market, its share of the overall retail market is still only around 6%.

Sir Terry plans to take the brand into new areas such as its recent move into DVD rental by post, but there have been signs of a backlash against the group's increasing dominance of the High Street, with some saying that it has become too powerful.

The bonus for Tesco staff is 20% of salary in cash, or up to 30% if employees opt to take it in shares in the company. Tesco said that the average payout for shopfloor workers will be £4,000.

Other bosses to collect massive pay packets include the Post Office's chief executive Adam Crozier, who was paid nearly £3m last year.

The 41-year-old former chief executive of the Football Association's income is believed to be the largest paid to the director of a government-controlled company.

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