(Alliance News) - Tesco PLC on Monday said it has begun buying back shares worth up to GBP1 billion by April 2025.

The Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire-based supermarket chain said this is part of its ongoing share buyback programme.

The first tranche of the buyback will be for up to GBP450 million and will be run by Citigroup Global Markets Ltd. Any further tranches of the buyback will be announced in "due course".

Tesco first announced the programme earlier this month with its annual results. At the time, it noted that has bought back shares worth GBP1.8 billion so far since launching its capital return programme in October 2021, including GBP750 million in the 12 months to this month.

Pretax profit surged to GBP2.29 billion in the financial year that ended February 24 from GBP882 million a year prior.

Revenue climbed 4.4% to GBP68.19 billion from GBP65.32 billion. Cost of sales increased slower, by 2.1% to GBP62.84 billion from GBP61.52 billion.

In addition to the share buyback, Tesco announced a final dividend of 8.25 pence per share, which brought the total to 12.10p, up 11% from 10.90p paid for financial 2023.

Shares in Tesco were up 2.3% to 287.90 pence each in London on Monday morning.

By Greg Rosenvinge, Alliance News senior reporter

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