If one Asda co-owner transfers their shares to the other, they might save millions in stamp duty.
Twenty-one percent of the supermarket chain was acquired from Walmart in 2021 by Mohsin and Zuber Issa and the private equity firm TDR Capital.
However, speculation has arisen regarding the company’s future ownership in light of reports suggesting that Zuber intends to divest his 22.5 percent stake.
Asda Owners Navigate Complex Deal
Mohsin is in a relationship with Victoria Price, a former tax partner at EY and Asda’s auditor, and has separated from his wife of thirty years.
Price disclosed her relationship with Mohsin Issa to EY “at the outset,” according to her attorneys, and EY has confirmed that she fulfilled all of her responsibilities and made all pertinent disclosures to the firm’s ethics and compliance teams during her career.
It has been reported that Zuber, who acquired Asda with his brother for a mere £100 million in cash, is demanding a minimum of £500 million for his shares. According to sources, TDR is the most likely purchaser.
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Typically, a purchaser is obligated to remit a stamp duty of 0.5 percent on the purchase price, which equates to an estimated tax liability of £2.5 million.
Mohsin Issa confirmed in a letter to Liam Byrne, chair of the Business and Trade Select Committee of MPs, that “there may be savings on stamp duty” due to the fact that three of its holding companies are incorporated in Jersey, a jurisdiction devoid of such a tax.
Mohsin verified that the incorporation of “no companies in the Asda ownership structure” in jurisdictions other than England and Wales was done with the intention of evading income tax obligations “through any favourable tax status.”
