Lancashire billionaires the Issa Brothers are looking into merging supermarket giant Asda with their petrol forecourt business EG Group, according reports in The Times over the weekend.
The combination would create a retail giant worth as much as £13bn billion and consisting of around 581 supermarkets, 700 petrol forecourts and 100 convenience stores across the UK, as well as Asda’s lucrative online business which fulfills over 15m orders a year.
The billionaire brothers co-founded Euro Garages in 2001, with the acquisition of a single petrol station in Bury, Greater Manchester. The group rapidly expanded as the brothers capitalised on the trend of petrol giants offloading their forecourt retail businesses to focus on production and refining at the beginning of the century.
Since 2016, when Euro acquired EFR and renamed to EG Group, it has been co-owned with TDR Capital, which currently owns 50 per cent of the group to the brothers’ 25 per cent apiece. They successfully acquired Asda from Walmart in 2020 and are also key investors in sportswear brand Castore through their Monte Group.
They made an unsuccessful attempt to acquire Top Shop in 2021, losing out to ASOS and last year attempted to take control of pharmacy giant Boots, although current owner Walgreen ultimately took it off the market.
