Tesco's move to the US follows online foray
When US supermarket chain Albertsons came up for sale, Tesco said 'not interested'. When Sir Terry Leahy was interviewed by the Observer a month ago, he said: 'People have talked about businesses in the US that could be bought, but I don't think they are right for us. We have had researchers in America, but I can tell you that we have no current plans to make an acquisition there.'

Tesco's US research team returned only recently from a 12-month stakeout of the US market, having seemingly concluded that the retailer would continue its strategy of investing only in emerging markets where it could dominate.

Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and China remained top of its agenda - including 2,467 stores, operating across 13 countries. Rumours flew last week that Tesco was interested in buying Dutch grocery giant Ahold's European business. It was also rumoured, more realistically, that it would make a move for a raft of stores put up for sale by Dutch supermarket chain Laurus.

Today's announcement turns any assumptions about Tesco on their head.

However, the decision to start on the US's West Coast should come as no surprise. In 2001, the company signed a deal with West Coast-based Safeway to export its online know-how with a£15.7 million joint development of Safeway's GroceryWorks web site, in which Tesco took a 35 per cent share.

The retailer helped change the fulfilment strategy of the web site, switching it from a warehouse-based supply process to a store pick-up system.

Technically, the cute Sir Terry was right when he said that there were no plans for an acquisition. Numis analyst Steve Davies said: 'This is clearly a big prize to go for - the US grocery market is worth US$600 billion. In our view, the company is approaching this in a very sensible way, although there will doubtless be some concerns raised here as to why Tesco is attacking the most developed retail market in the world. With such limited upfront investment, we believe that it is at least worth a shot.'

The retailer has been on frequent research trips to see innovative US retailers for years and put down a research office in the US last year, which recently finished its term.

At a time when many of the US's embattled grocery retailers must have believed that things could not get any worse, Tesco has landed.

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