London, June 25, 2026, 15:08 BST
- Tesco was up 0.2% at 457.1 pence, building on Wednesday’s 2.6% gain.
- The grocer snapped up 11 million shares, spending £49.1 million across the last two sessions.
- The entire £750 million plan may lower the opening share count by roughly 2.6%.
Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) was up 0.2% at 457.1 pence around 1500 BST Thursday. The FTSE 100 gained 0.8%. Tesco shares rose 2.6% on Wednesday, outpacing the index, which added 0.3%.
Tesco picked up 5 million shares Wednesday at an average price of 448.25p, on top of 6 million shares Tuesday at 444.56p. That left the supermarket with a £49.1 million outlay over the two days. Tesco’s total buyback spend now stands at £399.1 million, or 53% of the £750 million it set aside for the programme, with 87.6 million shares bought so far. Outstanding shares dropped under 6.3 billion.
The 11 million shares represent roughly a quarter of two normal trading days, using Google Finance’s average daily volume of 22.2 million. Tesco has been buying at an average price near 455.4 pence since April, less than 0.5% below where the stock closed on Thursday.
Tesco is moving ahead with its buyback after a weaker sales quarter. Since it kicked off, Tesco has taken about 1.4% of shares off the market. At Thursday’s close, the company could buy another 76.8 million shares for the £350.9 million left in the programme. If Tesco finishes the buyback, the share count would drop about 2.6%, which would lift earnings per share by the same amount if profit holds steady.
Tesco’s sales rose 1.2% in the 12 weeks to June 14, according to new Worldpanel by Numerator figures, but its grocery market share dipped 10 basis points to 28.0%. Grocery inflation fell to 3.0%, and 30.4% of spend was on promotions.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Worldpanel, said supermarkets are “having to compete hard for that summer shop.” Online grocery sales climbed 9.1% across the market.
Tesco’s UK like-for-like sales grew 1.8% in the first quarter, under the 2.3% analysts had expected. CEO Ken Murphy said he “wouldn’t be reading too much into it,” adding food inflation linked to the war “hasn’t materialised as an issue.” Tesco kept its full-year adjusted operating profit guidance between £3.0 billion and £3.3 billion. Reuters
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the weak quarter was “a temporary blip rather than a bigger trend”. He thinks Tesco could hit the upper range of its profit guidance, but said the stock trades above the long-term average, which could limit gains in the near term. HL
Tesco will pay its 9.7p final dividend on Friday.
