Issa Brothers admit errors in evidence to MPs
A letter from the Issa Brothers to MPs on the Business and Trade Committee has admitted errors in their evidence, but appear to have made even more mistakes in attempting to clarify the complex ownership of their businesses.
In a 13-page letter signed by Moshin Issa, co-CEO, the letter goes into detail on pricing policies, wages at Asda and includes complex diagrams of the labyrinth offshore structures which own both EG and Asda.
“I am pleased to provide further clarity around the questions raised at our session on 19 July 2023. While the much broader questions posed in the letter of 30 August 2023 are, by the Chair’s admission, “not usual”, I am happy to answer them in the interests of cooperation and transparency. This is without prejudice to my belief that enquiries as to the choice of company structure adopted by Asda and the detailed questions raised in the letter of 30 August 2023 go far beyond the stated remit of the non-inquiry session into food and fuel price inflation.”
Issa admits the errors in the evidence, and says the scrutiny makes him uncomfortable.
“Of course, I recognise that my co-ownership of Asda brings with it a level of scrutiny. I remain, however, a deeply private person who does not seek the limelight, nor do I feel particularly comfortable in it. As I said to the Committee, my upbringing and roots are a long way from where I find myself today. The community I grew up in is still the one my mum lives in. It’s the community I visit every week to visit my family and friends.”
He admitted the complexity, but said it wasn’t uncommon for a business of this size.
“While I appreciate that this structure looks complex, it is not uncommon for businesses the size of Asda to have several entities within their holding structure. There are a number of different lenders to the Asda business and the corporate structure which was put in place at the time of the acquisition of Asda was designed to facilitate and implement the capital structure which supported the acquisition, and in particular to facilitate the granting of different security packages to different lender groups, and to allow flexibility for potential future M&A or capital structure transactions.”
But the London Evening Standard newspaper has analysed the letter and found that it also contains “multiple inaccuracies” around the location of companies in offshore tax havens.
The letter to MPs states that Asda Group, Asda Stores and McLagan Investments are domiciled in Jersey. This is incorrect and they are UK registered companies.
Asda have admitted the mistake: “Unfortunately, there was an error in the table laying out the group of companies, incorrectly suggesting that Asda Group, Asda Stores and McLagan Investments were Jersey domiciled, when they have always been domiciled in the UK. All group companies are UK registered and pay tax in the UK in accordance with UK tax legislation.”
The errors in the letter appear to add even more confusion around which of their businesses own Asda.
