By Patrick Tooher and Liz Hull and Ed Holt and Chris Matthews
22:00 02 Feb 2024, updated 23:45 02 Feb 2024
- Mohsin Issa, 52, met EY accountant Victoria Price, 41, in Manchester in 2018
The billionaire co-owner of Asda has left his wife of thirty years and is engaged to a high-flying accountant who used to work at the grocer’s auditor.
News of the relationship between Mohsin Issa and Victoria Price follows speculation that it has caused a major rift between Mr Issa and his brother and business partner Zuber.
Mr Issa is said to have moved out of the family compound near Blackburn and into a nearby mansion, which he bought for £18.2million in 2022.
Father-of-two Mr Issa, 52, met Ms Price, 41, at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester in 2018 when she presented him and his brother with an entrepreneur of the year award at a ceremony.
The award was sponsored by Big Four accountancy firm EY, where Ms Price was a partner specialising in tax.
The Issa brothers made their fortune in petrol station retailing, founding EG Group – initially called Euro Garages – in 2001.
In 2021 they led a £6.8billion buyout of Asda.
But MPs investigating the deal questioned their ‘opaque’ accounts and ownership structure, and raised concerns over Mohsin Issa’s lack of experience in food retailing.
He is understood to be in process of divorcing his wife, Shamim, whom he married three decades ago.
They have two children in their twenties; daughter Mariya and son Sauban.
Ms Price divorced her second husband, Alastair Nuttall, in December 2021, citing irreconcilable differences.
She had met him in 2015 when they both worked at EY’s Manchester office.
He helped raise her two children from previous relationships.
The accountant began working at EY in 2006, rising through the ranks to become a partner heading up its private tax unit.
Her relationship with Mr Issa raised questions of a conflict of interest, as he was the director of a firm, Asda, being audited by EY.
But lawyers for the couple have stressed that Ms Price never worked on the Asda audit and made ‘all appropriate disclosures’ to its ethics and compliance committee.
Her affair with Mr Issa was also disclosed, they added.
Ms Price left EY last July – the day after the firm resigned as Asda’s auditor.
EY said they did so after the supermarket bought EG Group’s UK business a month earlier, citing the increased scale and complexity of the business.
Ms Price recently took up a high-powered job with management consultants Alvarez & Marsal, posting on LinkedIn this week that she was on an induction course in Florida.
According to the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, the Issa brothers have a combined net worth of more than £5billion. The feud between them has resulted in Mohsin running Asda and Zuber taking charge of the rest of the EG Group.
Asda is Britain’s third-largest supermarket but has been losing market share to Aldi and Lidl.
Saddled with debts of over £4billion, it has spent nearly two years looking for a chief executive after Roger Burnley quit following the brother’s buyout.
But Mohsin Issa told MPs in December that he is ‘best qualified’ for the Asda job – despite struggling at times to answer their basic questions about the finances of the grocer.
Brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa founded EG Group in 2001, one of Europe’s largest independent fuel retailers.
The company began as one petrol station that the brothers ran in Bury, Greater Manchester.
It then became Euro Garages, with locations across the UK, before private equity giant TDR Capital came onboard.
The business then became EG group, and expanded into Europe.
The EG Group has acquired brands including Cooplands, Cumberland Farms, Go Fresh, Leon and Loaf ‘N Jug.
The Issa brothers separately bought supermarket giant Asda with TDR Capital.
The billionaire brothers agreed to buy the Co-op group’s petrol stations for £600million in 2022.
The sale saw five per cent of Co-op’s entire retail estate – including 129 petrol stations and three development sites – handed over to Asda, which already ran 323 petrol stations across the UK.
Brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa saw off a number of rival bids to seal the deal, reportedly increasing their offer from £450million to £600million.
Co-op, known for its supermarket chains and funeral care operations, said that offloading its petrol forecourts will allow it to focus on its convenience business as well as raising important cash for the business.
For Asda, the move is part of its plans to become ‘the UK’s second largest supermarket’ and to move further into the country’s convenience store market.
Asda will pay £438million in cash and take on around £162million of lease liabilities as part of the deal, with the final amount set to be confirmed on completion later this year.
The deal also freed up cash for the convenience chain, which in 2022 announced it would cut around 400 jobs in the face of tough trading conditions worsened by rising inflation.
The cash will go towards funding new convenience stores in the heart of more communities, and reducing its net debt, the Co-op said.
Co-op Group — which owns supermarket chains and funeral care operations — has offloaded a number of its divisions over the past decade, including its chain of pharmacies and travel shops.
In April 2022, the firm revealed that its annual profits were slashed in half following supply chain disruption and higher costs.
Shirine Khoury-Haq, Co-op’s newly-appointed chief executive, said at the time: ‘This transaction is in line with our strategy to move away from operating petrol forecourts and supports our vision of co-operating for a fairer world while building our core leading convenience business.’
Mohsin Issa, co-owner of Asda, said: ‘We have always been clear in our ambition to grow Asda and are hugely excited to create this new and distinct part of our business, giving us the opportunity to bring Asda value in fuel and groceries to even more customers and communities across the UK.
‘We see convenience as a significant growth opportunity for the business.
‘This acquisition accelerates our strategy in this area and forms part of our long-term ambition to become the UK’s second-largest supermarket.
In June 2022, the US owner of pharmacy chain Boots has abandoned its plans to sell the UK high street chemist despite interest from the Issa brothers.
Walgreens Boots Alliance decided to keep both the pharmacy chain – which has 2,260 stores in the UK and employs around 55,000 – and the No7 beauty brand after ‘market instability’ put a stop to its plans to sell.
The 172-year-old feature of British high streets merged with Walgreens through deals in 2012 and 2014 and was valued at about £9billion at the time.
It was set for a sale of £5billion after a bid by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani through a consortium of Apollo Global Management and Reliance Industries.
However there were other takeover approaches from the Issa brothers’ Mohsin, and Zuber — who promised to invest £1billion to improve Asda since buying that business.
In May 2022, the Issa brothers also lodged last-minute bids to take control of the collapsed corner shop chain McColl’s.
But Morrisons won the battle to take over, securing the future of 16,000 jobs and 1,100 shops.
The supermarket giant fended off competition from the billionaire brothers, after a takeover tussle.
McColl’s lenders initially rejected an offer from Morrisons that would have seen it take on the firm’s debts and repay them over time.
Yet the supermarket chain returned with an improved deal that would see the lenders repaid in full immediately, satisfying one of McColl’s key demands.
The brothers story is an extraordinary one of rags to riches.
The two billionaire brothers turned a single petrol station in Bury into an empire of 5,900 branches before they bought Asda.
Mohsin Issa, 49, and his brother Zuber, 48, whose parents came to Britain from India ‘with nothing’, built EG Group from one site bought for £150,000 in 2001 into a £9billion giant employing 44,000 staff.
The brothers were worth an estimated £3.56billion, which included a £25million Kensington townhouse and a private jet that kept in a hangar at Blackpool Airport alongside Donald Trump’s personal helicopter.
As the children of immigrants who moved to Blackburn from Gujurat, India, in the 1970s, Mohsin and Zuber Issa – who were born in the former mill town – quickly learned the importance of hard work.
Their first experience of business was selling petrol from their parents’ filling station, where they would have their big idea that would revolutionise the industry and make their millions.
Petrol sales were in decline and fuel duty on the rise, cutting into already wafer-thin fuel margins and leading to hundreds of operators leaving the market.
At the time most garages – if they sold food at all – offered a measly selection of pre-packaged sandwiches, crisps, sweets and chocolate.
But the Issas realised fuel sales still had a purpose in creating a captive market at petrol stations, who could then be offered appetising food rather than the gruel offered elsewhere
The brothers struck franchise agreements with brands including Starbucks, Subway and KFC, before embarking on a buying spree to snap up sites that had previously become vacant.
Describing the secret of their success, Zuber told the Financial Times: ‘We wanted to create a destination where you could get fuel, food-to-go and shopping.
‘This is the formula and it works.
‘We were fortunate that the big players were leaving the market just as we were growing.’
‘They never in their wildest dreams would have imagined 5,500 gas stations in nine markets,’ senior executive Ilyas Munshi told the American trade magazine CSP.
‘If they had only 20 sites, they would have felt they had done their job.’
As proud Lancastrians, the brothers have insisted on keeping EG Group’s headquarters in Blackburn, and recently unveiled a new £35million headquarters.
‘People are always asking when we will move to London or Manchester,’ Zuber told the FT.
‘But the quality of life here is great. A lot of people do a few years in London then come to the North West.
‘They want to raise a family and have less pressure. We have got a lot of fantastic people that way.’
Mohsin has a wife Shamim, and their son and a daughter both work for EG.
Both brothers rarely give interviews and have adopted a low-key public profile.
They are now building five identical ‘super-sized’ homes three miles from their childhood home.
Despite the fierce opposition, which saw the council face 30 letters of complaint, eight old houses have now been demolished and builders have laid foundations for the five 5,000 sq ft mansions.
Plans for the large houses, which are located on a quiet rural road outside Blackburn where houses sell for up to £1million, were lodged in April 2018.
They sparked an uproar, with the properties described as ‘not in fitting with the local area’ as the homes stand over 4.5 metres taller with 1,500 square metres of floor space.
But planning permission was granted and pictures taken earlier this year showed builders had already moved in.
In 2017, the pair purchased a £25million mansion in Knightsbridge, which estate agents said could be worth £80million when planned renovations are carried out according to estate agents.
Their Grade II listed Georgian house is also at the centre of a long-running planning row.
The previous owner began digging a basement and left a vast 30ft-deep crater the size of two tennis courts, described by horrified neighbours to ‘Hitler’s bunker’.
When finished the luxury 22,000 sq ft home will have a huge underground car park, a swimming pool, spa, and cinema.
The brothers donate 2.5 per cent of their earnings to charity through the Issa Foundation, which funds hospitals and provides free breakfasts for children in Lancashire.
They emerged as favourites to buy Asda in 2020.
The decision confounded the City who believed owners, US grocer Walmart, was ready to sign a deal with Apollo Global Management, which was headed up by former Debenhams boss Rob Templeman.
When Lone Star Funds, which was working with former Asda executive Paul Mason, dropped out – Apollo were seemingly left with a clear run.
Yet it is thought Walmart was wooed by the Issas’ entrepreneurial flair and the potential to put Asda convenience stores in EG’s petrol stations.
The Issas are backed by private-equity firm TDR Capital, which has owned half of EG Group since 2016, and a series of lenders including Barclays and Lloyds.
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
