Tesco spent 22 years building Thailand’s biggest retailer — then sold it for $10B

Tesco entered Thailand in 1998 by acquiring a stake in the Lotus Supercenter chain, a joint venture founded by the Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group in 1994. Tesco branded the chain Tesco Lotus and expanded aggressively. By 2019, Tesco Lotus operated nearly 2,000 stores across Thailand, including 1,600 Tesco Lotus Express convenience stores and about 400 hypermarkets, making it the country’s largest retailer.

In March 2020, Tesco announced it was selling its entire Thailand and Malaysia operations to CP Group for approximately $10 billion. The sale was approved by regulators in Thailand and Malaysia by December 2020. Tesco used the proceeds for a £5 billion shareholder windfall and to focus on its core UK business. The stores were rebranded as Lotus’s in February 2021.

The divestiture marked the end of Tesco’s two-decade Southeast Asian presence. While the sale was financially successful for Tesco shareholders, it represented a strategic retreat from a market where Tesco had been the dominant retailer. CP Group, the original partner, reacquired full control of the business it had co-founded a quarter-century earlier.