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 we do the right thing by all our stakeholders. Our programme of engaging with stakeholders including customers, staff, suppliers, investors, non-governmental organisations and others, is set out in more detail on our website( www.tescoplc.com/plc/corporate_responsibility_09/ ), and in our Corporate Responsibility Report 2009.

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, 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 the Company Secretary’s office, Investor Relations and other teams within the business engage with shareholders on a regular basis, and on a wide range of issues.

It is normal that institutional shareholders may be in more regular contact with the Group than others, but care is exercised to ensure that any price-sensitive information is released to all shareholders, institutions and private, at the same time in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.