On Thursday, the firm's long-awaited strategic overhaul offered asset sales, cost cuts, a new boss for its UK business and a decision to cut its final dividend, made more palatable by strong Christmas trading figures.

With Tesco stock up 10 percent and on course for its biggest one-day gain since September 2008, the equity market has approved Chief Executive Dave Lewis's plan, even if bond markets demurred: yields widened on fear of a downgrade.

Below are a selection of comments from investors.

DAVID MOSS, HEAD OF EUROPEAN EQUITIES, F&C INVESTMENTS

"The radical actions and improvement in trading mean that it is firmly back as investable and we need to do more detailed work as the announcement demonstrates a clear understanding of the issues and a plan for dealing with them.

"The capex cut, DB (defined benefit pension) scheme closure and other savings should also mean that we are past the worst point in terms of a capital raising."

NICHOLAS KIRRAGE, FUND MANAGER, SCHRODERS

"The direction of travel and the tone is much more in line with what we think is the best interests of long-term shareholders.

"For me, the biggest thing is the capex. Recognising that there's been an enormous amount of money invested in the business and that it could be done much better going forward, and just putting the brakes on that and having some more rationality to how money's invested. It would be nice to think some of the other supermarkets would take a lead from that.

PARAS ANAND, HEAD OF EUROPEAN EQUITIES, FIDELITY WORLDWIDE INVESTMENT

"What will be disappointing for some shareholders is the cancellation of the dividend but turnarounds are about prioritisation and it would seem logical to be focussing on putting the business on as sound a financial footing as possible in the short term in order to give the management the required flexibility to improve the trading performance.

"There is clearly a long road ahead but the new CEO is at least showing a determination to make substantive rather than token changes."

MANISH SINGH, HEAD OF INVESTMENT SERVICES, CROSSBRIDGE CAPITAL

"Four Christmases and four profit warnings later, it seems Tesco has turned the corner and have a plan to deal with its self-inflicted troubles of last few years.

"Tesco is still the largest UK retailer with over 30 percent market share and the numbers reported for this Christmas were better than anticipated. A lot of positive for markets to chew and cheer on even as non-payment of dividend is a negative."

JOHN SMITH, SENIOR FUND MANAGER, BROWN SHIPLEY

"The turnaround plan and appointment of Matt Davies are viewed as positive. No final dividend and closure of unprofitable stores suggests the shares are a good recovery play.

"Unchanged profits guidance suggests trading didn't deteriorate further. Probably a lot of bears are closing short positions."

CHRIS WHITE, HEAD OF UK EQUITIES, PREMIER ASSET MANAGEMENT

"Whilst there is no quick fix at Tesco, there enough in this statement to suggest that Tesco has started to stop the rot in the UK."

MAJOR TESCO SHAREHOLDER

"I do think the business is a little bit big and a little bit too complicated. Anything they do to slim the business down is right.

"They shouldn't be looking at doing a rights issue, so anything they do to bolster the balance sheet without doing that is a positive."

(Reporting by Simon Jessop, Atul Prakash, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Emma Thomasson, James Davey, Kate Holton, Neil Maidment and Robert Smith; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)