The price of shares in FTSE 100 supermarket group Tesco (LON:TSCO) dropped by 1.75% to 224.90p (as of 13:20 GMT) after it declared it would repay the £585 million in business rates relief that it received during the pandemic. Management said that while the costs of the pandemic response exceeded the subsidy, the business was able to continue to trade throughout and many of the potential risks were mitigated.
Chairman John Allan commented: “The Board has agreed unanimously that we should repay the rates relief we have received. We are financially strong enough to be able to return this to the public, and we are conscious of our responsibilities to society. We firmly believe now that this is the right thing to do, and we hope this will enable additional support to those businesses and communities who need it.“