Capital discipline and financial market relations in retail globalization: insights from the case of Tesco plc

Abstract

This article provides an in-depth study of leading transnational food retailer Tesco plc to explore how its financial management and relations with the investment community—notably its reputation for capital discipline—underpinned successful expansion. Informed by close dialogue with equity analysts, we investigate how this model deteriorated since the late 2000s with declining returns, leading to high-profile international divestitures. The analysis assesses the drivers of these difficulties, and conceptualizes them. It examines how the retailer, pressured by the investment community, reviewed its international strategy and attempted to ‘reset’ its relations with capital markets to re-emphasize shareholder value and returns. The research teases out the manner in which legitimacy with capital markets underpins the extent, pace and form of global retail expansion, leading to significant implications for workers, consumers and wider stakeholders across spatially dispersed host markets.

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