Tesco Parachutes in New CFO Alan Stewart After £250m Accounting Scandal

Troubled British retailer Tesco has parachuted in a new chief financial officer, Alan Stewart, in a bid to control the damage its announcement has done to its stock price and the market's faith in the company.

Tesco, which announced that it had overstated its profits by £250m (€318m, $409m), has brought in Stewart more than two months ahead of schedule after Laurie McIlwee left just over a week ago, following his resignation in April.

The group did not make any further comment over, the former Marks and Spencer CFO, Stewart's fast tracked appointment.

Tesco stunned the markets by announcing that it had overstated its profits by hundreds of millions of pounds due to an accounting error on 22 September.

It also confirmed that it has launched an internal investigation, led by accountancy giant Deloitte, and is working with heavyweight law firm Freshfields to get to the bottom of the issue and how it will impact full year results.

It has also since suspended four executives, including UK managing director, Chris Bush, while media reports have speculated that the others include food commercial director John Scouler and the head of food sourcing, Matt Simister.

These names have not been confirmed.

Tesco had already cut its full-year profit forecast from £2.8bn to £2.4bn in August.

Traders revealed that they were wiping their books of the stock and share prices ceremoniously tanked 11% on 23 September to 203.00p.