is one of the world's leading retailers. Founded in 1919, the company began expanding its business to other countries in Europe, Asia and the United States in 1995. It now has 4,811 stores in 14 countries around the world. In 2007, Tesco expanded its business into the United States by adopting a Greenfield strategy to establish the urban-style supermarket “Fresh & Easy”. The opening of these small convenience stores was a great opportunity for the company. By early 2010, Tesco had opened 145 Fresh and Easy stores in the western United States. Fresh and easy offered fresh, healthy food at affordable prices and emphasized daily low prices rather than weekly specials. The consumer behavior of US citizens has changed in recent years, becoming more health conscious and choosing to travel less to purchase groceries. However, this investment turned out to be a major and costly failure. One reason is that Tesco's timing was unfortunate, as it was hit by the US recession in 2008. Tesco decided to exit its US chain of 199 Fresh and Easy stores, which never made a profit. Dumping Fresh & Easy has cut profits by £1.2 billion after around six years. The company filed for bankruptcy that same year so it could sell itself at auction to an affiliate of Yucaipa Cos. of billionaire Ron Burkle as the leading bidder. It is also believed that the root of Tesco's problems in the US was a failure to understand the US retail landscape, which was different to that of the UK. The push to get even bigger while offering lower prices had worked for years, but it proved difficult for the company to change course when needed. This established the fact that not all foreign direct investments are successful and profitable. If a company doesn't do enough research on its culture, behavior, or competitors, it can easily fail