The billionaire brothers in a debt bind

Mohsin and Zuber Issa “turbocharged their retail empire in the easy-money era through dozens of debt-funded deals” to form one of the world’s largest owners of petrol stations and supermarkets, says Bloomberg. Their sprawling EG Group empire now includes more than 6,000 petrol stations worldwide, Subway fast-food stores and Asda, one of the UK’s biggest supermarkets, which they acquired in a £6.8bn leveraged buyout in 2021.

The brothers still have stakes of more than $1bn each across their holdings, but their values have slumped in the space of just two years, and higher interest rates are forcing the brothers and TDR Capital, their private-equity backers, to sell major assets to repay debts.

It’s not just their businesses that are under strain. There have long been rumours of a rift between the two, which reportedly arose when Mohsin (on the right in our picture) left his wife of 30 years and proposed to Victoria Price, a “high-flying accountant” who used to work as Asda’s auditor at EY, says the Daily Mail. Mohsin moved out of the family compound near Blackburn and into a nearby mansion, which he bought for £18.2m in 2022. But he recently told the BBC that he and his brother continue to “get on exceptionally well”.

The brothers have come a long way from their humble beginnings in Blackburn. They ran their own businesses before jointly buying their first petrol station in Bury in 2001, says the BBC. Then, as the oil companies began selling off and closing their petrol stations to focus on production and refining, the brothers took a chance to expand and joined forces with TDR Capital to snap up vacant sites. The punt worked out well for them – they were listed 40th on The Sunday Times Rich List last year, with a net worth of £5.05bn. “We’ve not done bad to be honest,” says Mohsin.

Moshin is now mainly focused on Asda; Zuber on EG Group, says Bloomberg. Zuber is looking to offload his Asda stake and buy assets from EG, which would reduce its debts and probably hand TDR greater control of Asda. Meanwhile, Mohsin has stepped back from day-to-day control, handing the reins to industry veteran Stuart Rose. It seems the brothers’ paths are diverging.