UK supermarket Asda to buy petrol station operator Easy Group UK

British supermarket group Asda said it would buy the UK and Ireland business of petrol station operator Easy Group to accelerate its move into the convenience sector, creating a company with combined revenues of around 30 billion pounds ($38 billion). .

Asda, Britain’s third largest grocery store, and EG are both owned by brothers Zuber and Mohsen Issa and private equity group TDR Capital.

The groups said on Tuesday that the deal, which includes around 350 petrol stations and more than 1,000 food-to-go locations, values ​​Easy at 2.27 billion pounds, including debt.

Asda has said it aims to It is to become the UK’s No. 2 supermarket, overtaking Asda Express and the deal will enable it to roll out Asda Express in the EG Petrol estate.

According to the most recent figures from Cantor, Tesco leads the market with a 27.1% share. Sainsbury’s has a 14.8% share of the market, ahead of Asda at 13.9%.

Since the Issa brothers bought Asda in 2021, 166 EG sites have already been converted to the “Asda on the Move” format.

The deal comes as consumers grapple with the cost of living crisis, which has seen grocers trying to cope with rising food prices by needing to pay higher wages, while also competing with German discount groups Aldi and Lidl. Is.

Asda, which like rivals is competitive on the price of petrol sold at its bigger stores, said it planned to invest more than £150 million within the next three years to integrate EG.

Asda’s shareholders, including its former owner US retail giant Walmart Inc, will provide additional equity of around £450 million to the deal.

The grocer reported same-sex sales growth of 7.8% in the three months to the end of March compared with the previous year, while total revenue excluding fuel rose 8% to 5.0 billion pounds.