2020 is sure to be marked as a transformational year for Mohsin and Zuber Issa, as they made their entry into the big league of the UK retail agreeing to buy a majority stake in the country’s no 3 supermarket chain Asda in October.
Later that month, the brothers were awarded with CBE in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
The £6.8 billion deal, in partnership with private equity group TDR Capital, will enable the Blackburn-based brothers to take Asda back under British ownership for the first time since 1999, when Walmart paid £6.7bn for the business. The Issas plan to invest more than £1bn in the next three years in Asda to keep prices low and to protect its supply chains.
“After a successful period as part of Walmart, we are looking forward to helping Asda build a differentiated business that will continue to serve customers brilliantly in communities across the UK,” they say.
The Indian-origin brothers are known for the fast-expanding forecourt operator EG Group, which now runs almost 6,000 sites across three continents. Initially called Euro Garages, the Issa brothers founded the group in 2001, acquiring a single petrol filling station in Bury, Greater Manchester.
Their parents came to the UK from Gujarat, India, in the 1960s. They attended their local comprehensive school in Blackburn and began their careers working in their father’s local petrol station.
Big ticket acquisitions are not new for the enterprising brothers. They branched out across the pond and Down Under in 2018, by acquiring 762 convenience stores from Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the US, and the petrol business of Woolworths Group, Australia’s no 1 retailer. They have since expanded the US network to over 1,700 stores across the country, operating in 33 states and retailing more than 2.5 billion gallons of fuel with merchandise sales of more than $3 billion (£2.26bn) on an annualised basis.
Earlier in 2015, the brothers established themselves as a major independent forecourt retailer in the UK following a series of significant acquisitions from oil majors ExxonMobil and Shell, giving the business a nationwide site footprint.
EG Group is the largest single retail branded wholesaler customer globally for ExxonMobil. They started their international foray in 2016, entering the European market.
The group has recently strengthened their offering in the UK with acquisitions of a major Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise and a licensing deal with US bakery brand Cinnabon.
Mohsin and Zuber have founded the EG Foundation (corporate) and ISSA Foundation (personal), which supports individuals, communities and organisations, both domestically and internationally, with activities that promote education, health and addresses poverty.
They retain a strong connection to their hometown, Blackburn, which is their primary place of residence.
They also sponsor a local football team, Euro Garages FC, there.
