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Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

Tesco admits to making €300 million mistake in its books. Oops...

Expected profits down for the third time this year as world’s second-biggest retailer looks into the screw-up.

TESCO HAS DOWNGRADED its expected profits after admitting to “an overstatement” in its finances – to the tune of over €300 million.

The UK company, the world’s second-biggest retailer, told investors today there had been some accounting mistakes in its financial forecasts from August and it was anticipating to make about £250 million (€318 million) less than expected for the first half of the year.

It was the company’s third profit warning so far for 2014 after it said late last month that “challenging trading conditions” meant it was expecting to make a lower-than-expected £1.1 billion (€1.4 billion) in profits for the first half of the year.

Tesco’s interim financial results will now be released about three weeks late on 23 October and in the meantime it has ordered an independent review into the error.

“Work is ongoing to establish the extent of these issues and what impact they will have on the full year,” the company said in a statement.

Tesco Twitter / Sunny_Mangat Twitter / Sunny_Mangat / Sunny_Mangat

A serious “issue” (aka screw-up)

Tesco Group chief executive Dave Lewis said the company had “uncovered a serious issue and (we) have responded accordingly”.

“The Chairman and I have acted quickly to establish a comprehensive independent investigation,” he said.

The board, my colleagues, our customers and I expect Tesco to operate with integrity and transparency and we will take decisive action as the results of the investigation become clear.”

In August Tesco announced it was expecting to turn a trading profit of £2.4 billion to £2.5 billion for the latest financial year – down from £3.3 billion in 2013/14.

The company has put its flagging performance down to a weaker and more competitive UK market, where it does the biggest share of its business, and a sped-up shift to online shopping.

It has also been spending money as part of its moves into Asia, where it has been expanding its business in South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and India.

READ: Companies too worried about themselves, not enough about jobless: Tesco boss

READ: Irish people need to stop expecting to pay €5 for a steak, say farmers

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    Mute Animal
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:15 AM

    Will it be compatible with Playstation 1

    169
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    Mute Chris Creaven
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:36 AM

    Wait for the nudie scenes on GTA. Up ya boyo

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    Mute Chris Creaven
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:34 AM

    Wait for the nudie parts. In GTA up ya boyo

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    Mute Paul thomas
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:39 AM

    Ya can say that again

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    Mute Patrick Shelton
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:28 AM

    O.R for the PC or the Sony P.M version… either way VR is coming :)

    29
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    Mute eye_c_u__
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:53 AM

    I remember it as a cool fad in early 90s.

    I tried it out with big headset. Seemed amazing for its time but then just disappeared

    26
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    Mute Glangan
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    Mar 19th 2014, 1:28 PM

    I don’t own a PS4 but I want one anyway – they just look cool.

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    Mute Shane Kearney
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    Mar 19th 2014, 5:07 PM

    Careful what you wish for…..got mine at launch and it has been gathering dust since. Much more happening on the aul’ ps3

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    Mute Darren Turner
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:06 AM

    Complete rip off of ocullous rift

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    Mute Liam Byrne
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:16 AM

    Nope. They’ve said that they’ve been working on it for a few years. No doubt oculus rift gave them the kick they needed to reveal it.
    Besides, even if it was a rip off, what’s your point?

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    Mute Jimbo Murphy
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:23 AM

    Complete rip off of virtual boy

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    Mute Brendan Harlowe
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    Mar 19th 2014, 11:43 AM

    Stop they all robbed the idea off lawnmower man anyways!

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    Mute bandido
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:57 AM

    WHOOO 90 degree vision , not much use

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    Mute Des Smyth
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:57 AM

    Oculus has had a huge head start with Dev kits in the market for over a year with all industries from military to NASA currently developing with them. Don’t think Oculus need to worry about the big bad Sony coming to market

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    Mute Liam Byrne
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    Mar 19th 2014, 10:45 AM

    I hope oculus do really well. Apparently the tech is quite similar in both, so they’ll both help push VR. Hopefully the devices won’t be restricted to single platforms.

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    Mute Des Smyth
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    Mar 19th 2014, 11:23 AM

    I know Oculus will work on several platforms they are even developing it to work on Android. I was going to buy the dev kit but I’m holding off now for the consumer version

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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Mar 19th 2014, 4:29 PM

    Funny though, when X1 was announced with Kinect as standard, people complained they just wanted a controller and play the traditional way…. And to sit playing it….

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    Mute Des Smyth
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    Mar 20th 2014, 9:31 AM

    Funny Oculus Dev kit 2 released yesterday #goodtiming

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    Mute bandido
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    Mar 19th 2014, 9:56 AM

    WHOOO 99 degree vision, not much use

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