Last modified on Tue 20 Apr 2021 06.56 EDT
The £6.8bn takeover of Asda by a private equity consortium fronted by the Blackburn-based petrol station billionaire brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa could lead to higher fuel prices in some parts of the UK, the UK competition watchdog has warned.
The Issa brothers and TDR Capital co-own the petrol station operator EG Group, which has 395 UK petrol stations while Asda owns 323. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said many of the forecourts were located in the same parts of the country and it was concerned about these overlaps.
Joel Bamford, the CMA’s senior director of mergers, said: “Our job is to protect consumers by making sure there continues to be strong competition between petrol stations, which leads to lower prices at the pump. These are two key players in the market, and it’s important that we thoroughly analyse the deal to make sure that people don’t end up paying over the odds.