*** Tesco Swingers Club ***

Tesco Will Reduce Prices by 80 Million Pounds Starting Monday

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg)

Tesco Plc, the U.K.'s biggest food retailer, will lower prices of 500 products by a total of 80 million pounds ($154 million), starting Monday, as it competes with rivals including Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Asda chain.

The cuts, on goods from chicken filets to Pampers Babywipes made by Procter & Gamble Co., will average 9 percent, Cheshunt, England-based Tesco said today in an e-mailed statement. The reductions will include health and beauty products as well as meat, produce, frozen foods and prepared meals.

Tesco last year invested more than 219 million pounds to reduce prices as it battled for market share with Asda. The chains are expanding non-food ranges to include products from DVDs to car insurance. Asda planned to deliver more than 1 billion pounds of price cuts by the end of the year since it was bought in 1999 by Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer.

A 568-gram package of Tesco Value skinless chicken-breast filets will cost 3.73 pounds as of Monday, the statement shows, 6 percent less than before. The price of a refill of 72 Pampers Babywipes will drop by 8 percent to 2.29 pounds.

Tesco has overtaken Asda as Britain's cheapest supermarket chain, according to a survey by trade magazine The Grocer. The company also said today it will start to run new televised advertisements for its Tesco Price Checker, which can be accessed through the grocer's Web site and compares prices of 10,000 goods with Asda and other supermarket operators.

Shares of Tesco fell 0.75 penny to 321 pence at 11:20 a.m. in London, giving the company a market value of 24.6 billion pounds. The stock has gained 25 percent in 2004, the third- biggest climb in the nine-member Bloomberg Europe Food Retailers Index, which has advanced 2.2 percent.