LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest supermarket Tesco (L:TSCO) on Wednesday posted a 55 percent slump in first-half profit, showing the scale of the financial damage wrought by discount groups and raising questions over boss Dave Lewis' turnaround plan.
In line with recent market data, Tesco showed a steady improvement in trading in its home business and it reiterated its full-year outlook, however it said the market remained challenging and it stood ready to invest more if needed.
Tesco said it made an operating profit before one-off items, its new headline performance measure, of 354 million pounds ($540 million) in the six months to Aug. 29, its fiscal first half.
That compared to 779 million pounds made in the first half of the grocer's 2014-15 year. It also said it would retain its Dunnhumby data business.
($1 = 0.6558 pounds)