'Not About Ego': Tesco CEO Eyes US Retreat as Fresh & Easy Proves Neither

UK supermarket giant Tesco is trying to stake a claim in the U.S. market with its Fresh & Easy grocery chain on the west coast, but it hasn’t done well, even after a “major revamp.” Now the company may just give up on making it in America, according to the Telegraph.

“If we see there is no chance of success, we’ll do as we’ve just done in Japan” and pull out, Tesco CEO Philip Clarke told shareholders, the Telegraph reports. “It is not about ego. We are businessmen.”

It's been a money-losing brand extension for some time. Fresh & Easy had losses last year of £153m ($239 million) and lost £186m ($291.5 million) the year before that.

Investors are so livid over Tesco’s recent performance that one asked Clarke if he would resign if things continued to not go swimmingly, but that idea was rejected. And it didn’t make the company look any better that they dissed the idea of establishing a “committee of non-executive directors to review Fresh & Easy’s future and set fixed benchmarks to measure its success” put forth by Change to Win Investment Group, the Telegraph notes.

“Investors will no doubt be troubled that the company seems calmly willing to continue making losses in the US, as it has since the launch in 2007,” said Michael Zucker at Change to Win to the paper.