Billionaire Asda buyers lose auditor Deloitte | This is Money
EG Group runs several thousand fuel stations / garages across Europe. Recently the same people took over Asda, a large Uk supermarket chain previously owned by Walmart. Their Auditor resigned after 4 years.
While EG group might have had their Auditor resign for any number of reasons, it is reinforcing my view that there are large changes happening in the fuel supply businesses .
At some point, the availability of fuel stations will reduce to a point where EVs are more practical. I'm keeping an eye open on UK service station owners and wondering when the tipping point and mass closures occur.
This anti-fossil Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt will rise fast over the next few years, part of why I expect EVs to be dominant much earlier than most imagine.
EDIT: Wikipedia has some more info.
EG Group - Wikipedia My emphasis
Major acquisitions
In 2017, it bought
77 Little Chef roadside restaurants.
In November 2017, the business secured approximately
1,000 forecourt assets from Esso in Germany, which were transferred and integrated into the existing EG network in October 2018.[9]
In 5 February 2018, EG Group announced that it will purchase nearly
eight hundred Kroger convenience stores for $2.15 billion.[10] Later that month, EG Group announced that it had completed the acquisition of circa
1,200 sites in Italy from Esso.[11] In April 2018, EG Group completed the acquisition of a portfolio of
97 sites in the Netherlands to supplement is existing network in the country.[12] On 9 November, 2018, Australian retailer Woolworths announced to the
Australian Securities Exchange it had entered into a binding agreement to sell its
540 fuel convenience sites to EG Group for AUD $1.72b,[13] and in December 2018, EG completed its acquisition of 225 sites of
Minit Mart from Travel Centers of America LLC for upwards of US$330m.[14]
In July 2019, EG completed its acquisition of
fifty four Fastrac branded sites in the United States,[15] and announced a deal to acquire
sixty nine sites operated by Certified Oil, also in the United States.[16] On July 31, 2019, EG Group announced having entered a binding agreement to purchase
Cumberland Farms. [17][18][19] The completion of the sale ended eight decades of family ownership of the chain.
In March 2020, EG became
KFC's largest franchisee in Europe through the acquisition of
145 KFC outlets in the UK & Ireland.[20]
In October 2020, EG’s owners won a deal to buy the
supermarket chain Asda from Walmart for £6.8 billion bringing it back into British hands after more than 20 years.[21]
EG Group's acquisitions have been largely funded by debt, with a net debt of over £7.3 billion at the end of 2019
