Mohsin and Zuber Issa are among northern England’s most successful business people. Now billionaires, they started their careers with a single petrol station in Bradford. They now own 350 of them, and the Asda supermarket chain to boot. They bought Asda in a highly leveraged transaction, however, and as UK interest rates stay high to counter inflation, the chain is burdened with debts of £6 billion. The brothers’ solution is to buy their own petrol stations, whose brisk cash flow, the thinking goes, will help service Asda’s debt. If this was a straight merger it might be straightforward, but it isn’t. The Issas are loading up with £770 million more debt in high-interest loans to make it happen, as government pressure and competition from Aldi and Lidl shrink their margins. The Telegraph reports that £3.6 billion in loans are due for repayment in February 2026. No doubt there’s a plan.
