Collaborative Partnership

Tesco PLC
31 March 2000


Eleven leading retail companies to form WorldWide Retail Exchange

Web-based B2B marketplace with combined sales of USD 300 billion

Eleven of the world's leading retailers, including Marks and Spencer,
Kingfisher and Tesco, today announced they will form a collaborative
partnership to establish the WorldWide Retail Exchange. The new web-based,
business-to-business exchange is expected to begin operating mid-2000. It is
designed to facilitate and simplify trading between retailers and over 100,000
suppliers, partners and distributors.

The participants are Albertson's (US), Auchan (France), Casino (France), CVS
(US), Kingfisher (UK), K-Mart (US), Marks & Spencer (UK), Royal Ahold (The
Netherlands), Safeway Inc. (US), Target (US) and Tesco (UK). Together the
group operates over 30,000 stores and had 1999 combined sales of over Euro 300
billion (USD 300 billion). Other prominent retailers are also invited to join
the exchange and have expressed interest in the initiative. Cora, the leading
French-Belgian retailer, has also taken the decision to join shortly.

The WorldWide Retail Exchange is a web-based marketplace, enabling
transactions between retailers operating in the food, general merchandise, and
drugstore sectors. It is an open exchange and provides an information highway
of publicly available item data together with private price and promotion
information between multiple buyers and sellers. The exchange will also
provide the means for auctioning products.

Participating companies anticipate interaction on the WorldWide Retail
Exchange to be more efficient due to standardized item information. The
WorldWide Retail Exchange is expected to lower costs in the supply chain for
all participants.

Initially, the founding members of WorldWide Retail Exchange will each hold 5%
of the new company's share capital. The remaining equity will be re-considered
by the WorldWide Retail Exchange when it is known how many other retailers
wish to join the exchange. Currently, CEOs of the participating companies, or
their representatives, form the Executive Committee.  In future, the WorldWide
Retail Exchange is expected to be an independently managed company. The
founding members will review major technologies and invite IT companies to
work with the exchange.

In the first few years, investment in the collaborative partnership is
expected to amount to approximately Euro 100 million (USD 100 million).
Savings generated from WorldWide Retail Exchange for the participating retail
companies are expected to rapidly exceed costs.

Commenting on the development, the participating retail companies said: 'We're
proud to be part of this innovative exchange, the largest of its kind in the
world.  We are particularly pleased that companies from both Europe and the
United States are part of the WorldWide Retail Exchange. This comprehensive
initiative will reduce trade costs significantly, particularly benefiting our
customers, our shareholders and our companies.'

Contacts

Einir Williams           Kingfisher                    0171 725 2919
Louis Hill                    Marks and Spencer        0171 268 6560
Nicole Lander            Tesco Store Ltd               01992 646 789
                         (Out of Hours - Tesco)   01992 637 271