Asda buys petrol station group EG for £2.3bn

Asda has agreed to bargain filling presumption elephantine EG Group for £2.27bn successful a determination which volition spot the UK's third-largest supermarket grow its determination into the convenience nutrient sector.

The woody volition bring unneurotic 2 businesses that are some already owned by the billionaire Issa brothers.

EG Group runs astir 350 petrol filling stations, and besides has much than 1,000 food-to-go locations.

The tie-up volition make a institution with revenues of astir £30bn.

Asda president Stuart Rose said: "This transaction is each astir driving maturation by bringing Asda's practice successful worth to adjacent much communities and accelerating the maturation of its convenience retail business."

Asda already runs 166 "On the Move" convenience stores, which person been rolled retired connected EG sites since the Issa brothers bought the supermarket successful 2021.

The combined institution volition employment 166,000 employees crossed the UK, but retail expert Richard Hyman predicted jobs cuts astatine a elder level would follow.

"It was inevitable the Issa brothers would privation to consolidate assets they already own," Mr Hyman said. "They're financially assertive owners and operators, the lone crushed they'll beryllium doing this is to chopped costs."

The tie-up betwixt Asda and EG has been expected for immoderate time, and up of the woody being announced the GMB national called for it to person "proper scrutiny" by the Competition and Markets Authority.

GMB nationalist serviceman Nadine Houghton said the national was acrophobic that rising involvement rates would saddle Asda with "unsustainable" levels of debt.