Billionaire Asda owners borrow $9m to pay for private jets

The billionaire Issa brothers borrowed a further $9m (£7m) from their petrol forecourts empire last year to pay for their private jets, new documents reveal.

EG Group lent the money to personal private jet companies controlled by Mohsin and Zuber Issa in 2023. Both are based offshore in the Isle of Man.

The payments to the companies, Clear Sky LP and Clear Sky 2 LP, take the total amount owed to EG up to $50m, compared to $37m last year.

This includes $39m in unsecured loans that EG initially gave to the brothers to buy the jets in 2018.

It comes at a turbulent time for EG, as Zuber attempts to disentangle himself from the brothers’ sprawling business interests, including supermarket Asda.

The Telegraph revealed earlier this year Zuber was attempting to offload his 22.5pc stake in Asda, with existing private equity partner TDR Capital expected to be the buyer.

This will hand TDR majority control of Asda, which has been managed by Mohsin since the brothers bought the business for £6.8bn in 2021.

It has also since emerged that Zuber plans to step down as co-chief executive of EG, the business he launched from a single petrol station in Bury 23 years ago.

Mohsin is poised to take the helm as sole chief executive, he recently denied speculation of a rift with Zuber.

Zuber’s resignation will coincide with a separate deal to acquire EG’s remaining UK businesses, which is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2024.

Details of the prospective acquisition were laid out in the company’s latest annual report, which said it is “currently engaged in active discussions with Zuber Issa and his advisers”.

It said: “On completion of a sale to Zuber Issa of the majority of the retained UK&I business, he intends to step down as co-CEO, remaining on the EG Board as a non-executive director.”

The takeover will primarily cover EG’s forecourts and exclude the company’s electric car charging division, as well as its Cooplands and Starbucks businesses.

It hopes to use the proceeds to reduce the company’s $6bn debt pile, which has sparked vast finance costs since the rise in interest rates.

The company paid out $949m in debt finance costs last year alone, up from $728m in 2022. EG, which expanded rapidly over the past two decades, is now scaling back its operations.

Lenders were told in a private call in March that bosses were focused on “tidying up our estate”. EG owns thousands of petrol stations around the world and was founded by Zuber in 2001.

He brought Mohsin into the fold several years later and the business subsequently became the basis of a multibillion-pound family fortune.

An EG Group spokesman said: “EG Group provided loans to the Clear Sky companies at a commercial rate of interest to service external third-party debt. All loans have been fully disclosed in the EG Group accounts, and continue to be so.

These specific loans have been provided at rates comparable to the average commercial rate of interest, and that interest has been identified and recognised within EG Group’s finance income. These loans will be repaid in due course.”