Tesco – “Every Little Helps”. Especially someone else’s shares…
Share incentive schemes are a good way to motivate and reward senior executive employees.
As far as I’m aware though there are very few supermarket checkout operators that find themselves eligible for £100,000 worth of company shares as part of their remuneration package.
Mr Jeffrey Adams who worked on the checkout at Tesco’s Burton-on-Trent store in the UK though thought otherwise.
Back in 2002 he received some 44,000 shares in Tesco’s from the company that runs Tesco’s executive remuneration share plan.
These were meant for Mr Adams but alas not the Mr Jeffrey Adams that worked at the checkout in Burton-on-Trent but instead, Mr Jeff Adams who is the Chief Operating Officer of Tesco’s Fresh and Easy business in America.
Now what did Mr Adams (the checkout operator) do when he received the shares?
Did he do he honest thing and report it to his employees straight away?
No he didn’t.
Instead he sold the shares and made a profit of £100,000.
His ill-gotten gain remained secret for 7 years until Mr Adams (the Chief Operating Officer) tried to cash them in and found that the shares were nowhere to be found.
Mr Adams (the checkout operator) didn’t really appreciate the paper trail that exists when shares are sold and when he was arrested he claimed that they were left to him by his grandfather.
Mr Adams (the checkout operator) no longer works for Tesco and was last week jailed.
The judge said “You have to serve a prison sentence for £100,000 of dishonesty. You have shown no remorse and gave no plea of guilty.”
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