What is Mohsin and Zuber Issa’s net worth?
▼ £5 billion
£5.05 billion in 2023
The past year has been marked by personal and financial turmoil for the men dubbed “the billionaire gas station brothers”. Zuber Issa, 51, is reported to be in talks to sell his 22.5 per cent stake in the supermarket giant Asda. He and his brother Mohsin, 52, teamed up with the London-based private equity house TDR Capital to buy Asda for £6.8 billion three years ago from the US behemoth Walmart. Zuber wants to offload his stake to TDR. The deal would increase TDR’s holding in Asda to around three-quarters, giving it control of the business.
Separately, Zuber is said to be trying to buy out parts of the vast EG Group petrol station empire that he and Mohsin built together over three decades. Details of the proposed deal to buy about 30 of EG Group’s remaining UK sites were presented to investors earlier this year and were first reported by Bloomberg. If the deal goes through, Zuber plans to step back as co-chief executive of EG Group but will remain an investor and non-executive director. Mohsin intends to give up day-to-day control of Asda to focus on running EG Group. A search to find a new chief executive for Asda is under way.
Analysts speculate that the sudden changes have been sparked by family turmoil that has caused a rift between the brothers. Earlier this year Mohsin confirmed that he had left his wife of 30 years, Shamim, and begun a romantic relationship with Victoria Price, a former partner at EY, which was Asda’s auditor until July last year. Mohsin is said to have moved out of the family compound near Blackburn and into a nearby mansion, which he bought for £18.2 million in 2022. (Price did not work on the Asda business, company sources say, although she did other work for the brothers and for EG.)
Mohsin has denied claims of a rift with Zuber. He told the BBC the pair get on “exceptionally well … We talk to each other probably two or three times a day. We’ve been very, very privileged. We have been on a journey and we have got a long way still to go.”
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The brothers have had a tricky tenure at Asda as the Leeds-based supermarket chain battles debt pressures and falling market share. Mohsin has been called in for questioning by MPs twice in the past year amid concerns that financial pressures have led to price increases for customers. Asda has about £3.8 billion of net debt at present and has just refinanced most of it until 2030 and 2031.
The Issas’ parents came to the UK from the Indian province of Gujarat in the 1960s to work in Lancashire’s textile industry. Mohsin and Zuber grew up in a two-up two-down in Blackburn. They learnt the ins and outs of filling stations while working at their father’s garage. In 2001 they set up on their own, buying a rundown forecourt on Brandlesholme Road in Bury for £150,000.
The Issas’ skill has been selling food and other goods at their petrol stations, cannily plugging brands such as KFC, Burger King, Starbucks, Greggs and Subway into their forecourts. In 2023 the brothers opened what is considered the UK’s first drive-through Indian coffee shop in Bolton. EG Group now employs more than 45,000 people at nearly 6,000 petrol stations across 10 different countries, including the US and Australia.
• The Issa brothers built an empire. Now a wedge is driving them apart
Turnover at EG Group was broadly flat on a like-for-like basis in the year to December 21, 2023 at $28.3 billion. Underlying profits fell by 8 per cent to $1.1 billion, partly because of oil price volatility. EG has hefty debt, totalling £4.7 billion. Higher interest rates have pushed up the cost of servicing the debt. We value the operation cautiously at £9 billion. This puts a value of £4.5 billion on the Issas’ 50 per cent stake.
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The brothers have donated millions of pounds through their foundation to good causes across the UK, Asia and Africa as well as building a mosque in their hometown. Two 29m minarets tower over the building. EG Group has also given £125,000 to a British Red Cross appeal helping earthquake survivors in Turkey and Syria as well as £37,000 to support the Alder Hey Children’s Charity.
Not all of the siblings’ ventures have been well received in the community. In 2018 the Issas irked some with plans to demolish eight homes and build five luxury residences for themselves and their family. They were labelled “McMansions”. “The whole thing has been a pantomime,” one local joked. “What we are left with is not two but five ugly sisters.”
Although the brothers have bought a Knightsbridge mansion for £25 million, Blackburn remains their home. “People are always asking when we will move to London or Manchester,” Zuber once told the Financial Times. “But the quality of life here is great. A lot of people do a few years in London then come to the northwest. We have got a lot of fantastic people that way.”
View the full list to see where money was made and lost in the last year
