The owners of Asda and EG Group, the petrol stations company, are set to reveal a £10bn merger of their British operations, according to reports from Sky News.
Finishing touches were said to be being applied on Thursday (25 May), with the owners of both groups, the billionaire Issa brothers, Mohsin and Zuber, and TDR Capital, thought to be looking to announce the deal today (Friday 26 May).
Together, Asda and EG UK would form a group with 170,000 employees, 600 supermarkets, 100 convenience stores, 700 petrol forecourts, and annual revenues of nearly £30bn.
Sky News reports that Apollo Global Management, a contender to buy Asda when it was up for sale in 2020, has been lined up to provide over £500m of private placement debt to finance the deal, as indicated by banking sources.
A combination of Leeds-based Asda and Blackburn-based EG UK has been in talks since the start of the year, and would accelerate the former’s advance into convenience stores. The merger is anticipated to cost approximately £1.25bn.
