Walmart completed the sale of a majority stake in the business to the Blackburn-based Issa brothers and their private equity backers, TDR Capital, with the US group’s international
Walmart took a £1.1billion dividend out of Asda before selling the business to the Issa brothers despite profits falling.
In 2019 Asda, the UK’s third-largest supermarket, saw its profits fall by 27 per cent to £584.2million, while like-for-like sales, excluding fuel and VAT, fell by 0.8 per cent to £22.9billion.
Walmart’s international boss Judith McKenna was instrumental in the sale of Asda to the Issa brothers
Yesterday it revealed it paid a dividend of £1.15billion to its US owners in March this year.
Asda said the dividend reflected its performance over three years, was ‘surplus cash’, and followed a £1.2billion payment into the pension scheme, which has 12,300 members.
The announcement also comes days after Asda followed Tesco’s lead in paying back the £340million rates relief tax break to the Government following strong sales in the pandemic.
The supermarket’s performance has been lacklustre in recent years as Walmart has looked for a way to exit the highly competitive UK grocery market so it can focus on defending its position in the US against Amazon.
In the 12 weeks to November 29, Asda’s sales rose by 7.7 per cent compared to the same period in 2019, according to Kantar, pushing its market share down from 14.6 per cent to 14.1 per cent.
Walmart completed the sale of a majority stake in the business to the Blackburn-based Issa brothers and their private equity backers, TDR Capital, with the US group’s international boss Judith McKenna instrumental in the sale.
The dividend was revealed as Asda prepared to file its annual accounts for 2019 with Companies House, which will be available next week.
They will show profits were hit by a surge in property costs and an increase in share option charges.
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