Brothers Zuber Vali Issa and Mohsin Issa, Co-Founders EG Group have been awarded a CBE (Commanders of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020, for services to Business and charity (Blackburn, Lancashire).
British billionaire Issa brothers, the petrol station tycoons have a heartening success story to inspire the community. Zuber, 48, and his brother Mohsin, 49 were born in Blackburn after their dad came to the UK from Gujarat, India, to work in the textile industry. Mohsin and Zuber Issa founded petrol station operator EG Group two decades ago across the United Kingdom and Europe. What started as Euro Garages in 2001 with a single petrol station in Bury, Manchester at £150,000 is now spread across 6,000 sites in 10 countries.
Their net worth stands around £3.56bn according to Sunday Times Rich List, 2020. The brothers have invested £100mn in Frontier Park business estate on Blackburn/Hyndburn border which also includes Hampton by Hilton Hotel. Headquartered at Blackburn’s Haslingden Road, the company headquarter building is worth £35mn. They were also the buyers of a 25mn mega mansion in Knightsbridge in 2017.
The Issa brothers recently bought the British supermarket chain Asda from Walmart for an enterprise value of £6.8billion and plan to roll out more smaller stores. This is the first time since 1999, that Asa will be back under a British ownership. The brothers plan to invest more than £1bn in the next three years to keep prices at Asda low and to protect its supply chains. They aim to drive growth by upscaling to beat competitors Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
According to a news portal, The Issas’ wish to focus on British-sourced products, such as meat, in Asda supermarkets, a strategy that may be key as the UK heads towards its exit from the European Union later this year. Their company cares about the environment too. To help consume less energy, Euro Garages invested £3.2m in the installation of LED lighting across its UK sites to consume less energy, according to the company's website. A further £2.6m provided solar panels for more than 20 percent of EG sites to reduce their carbon footprint. Six of its motorway service stations feature rainwater harvesting systems, while the company invested £6m on renewable energy sources across its UK sites.
