Relations with stakeholders

Relations with stakeholders

We are committed to having a constructive dialogue with stakeholders to ensure we understand what is important to them and allow ourselves the opportunity to present our position. Engagement helps us identify new risks and opportunities to ensure that our long-term strategy is sustainable. In some instances we find that working with stakeholders in partnership can help deliver shared goals. We might not be able to satisfy all stakeholder concerns all the time but through engagement we can do our best to balance competing demands. We know that customers need to be able to trust our business and they will only trust us if they believe that we are engaging on an appropriate basis with our stakeholders. Our programme of engaging with stakeholders including customers, staff, suppliers, investors, government, regulators, non-governmental organisations and others, is set out in more detail at www.tesco.com/cr2010.

Shareholder engagement

We are committed to maintaining a good dialogue with shareholders through proactively organising meetings and presentations as well as responding to a wide range of enquiries. We seek shareholder views on a range of issues from strategy to corporate governance and SEE issues. We recognise the importance of communicating appropriately any significant Company developments.

During the year ended 27 February 2010, the Chairman, Chief Executive and Finance Director met with most of our leading shareholders to discuss issues relating to the Board, strategy and governance matters, as well as new developments within the business. The Chairman’s meetings with major shareholders took place independently from the Executive team. In addition to this, our Investor Relations team engage with shareholders on a regular basis, and on a wide range of issues. The Corporate Secretariat team also organise regular meetings, on both a one-to-one and group basis, with Socially Responsible Investors (SRIs) to discuss the work the Group is doing on corporate responsibility and governance-related issues. These meetings are attended as appropriate by Directors and other members of senior management.

An Investor Relations report is produced for the Board periodically. This report summarises feedback from shareholders particularly in terms of our management and strategy, and ensures the Board has a balanced perspective on the views of our major shareholders. It is normal that institutional shareholders may be in more regular contact with the Group than other shareholders, but care is exercised to ensure that any price-sensitive information is released to all shareholders, institutional and private, at the same time in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. All major presentations to institutional shareholders are made available to private shareholders through this website.

Every shareholder may choose to receive a full Annual Report and Financial Statements or the Annual Review and Summary Financial Statements, either in paper or electronic form. These reports, together with publicly-made trading statements, are available on www.tescoplc.com/plc/ir/.