Dow Jones Newswires: Tesco reports profit rise and exit of CEO Dave Lewis

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Tesco PLC said Wednesday that Chief Executive Dave Lewis will step down in the summer of 2020, and that the company’s pretax profit rose 6.7% in the first half of fiscal 2020.

Lewis, who said the decision to leave was a personal one, will be succeeded by Ken Murphy, the company said. Murphy brings with him a wealth of commercial, marketing and brand experience within retail and wholesale business, Tesco said.

For the six months ended Aug. 24, the U.K.’s biggest grocer TSCO, -2.42%  by market share said pretax profit was 494 million pounds ($606.6 million) compared with GBP463 million last year. Adjusted operating profit–the company’s preferred metric which excludes exceptional items and other one off items–was GBP1.41 billion, up from GBP1.12 billion in the first half of fiscal 2019.

Group revenue in the period rose 0.6% to GBP31.91 billion.

The board has declared an interim dividend of 2.65 pence a share, a increase of 59% from last year’s.

The company said it is in a strong position to generate sustainable growth within its existing capital expenditure allocation of GBP1.1 billion to GBP1.4 billion a year.