Tesco takes it on the chin

Today’s press carries the item that a group of some 125 Tesco (LON:TSCO) shareholders are claiming £100m+ damages as a result of having invested in Tesco in the light of buoyant figures caused by fraudulent accounting. I dare say that some might claim on the basis that they would have sold but for the figures produced by fraud. I expect there’ll be some difficulty attached to producing evidence to support these claims.

The action is being funded by Bentham Europe, a litigation funding group. Be it noted that the shareholders have been sifted from a trawl of the register by ambulance-chasing solicitors.

The lawyers are not awaiting the results of the criminal trials of the three Tesco executives. This is surprising since evidence will surely emerge in the form of statements given in court under oath. Bentham Europe must be very confident.


Be it noted that it is Tesco that takes it on the chin, not the workers involved. Needless to add one is bound to wonder at the long list of AIM-listed companies that may owe cash to their shareholders on the same basis. A word of caution here: many of these AIM companies if successfully sued (not easy) will not in fact have the cash to pay an adverse award.

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The chairman has been on to get me to increase my short of JPY .v. USD. Apparently, the target is 1.10 by Christmas. Contrast this with the current 1.0504.

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Gold has advanced sharply this morning. This means that Petropavlovsk (LON:POG) is a buy at 8.5p and the short term target is, say, 12p. Or so a gold share expert tells me. I have bought accordingly.