The Blackburn brothers who are bringing Asda home

What a triumph of entrepreneurial empire-building — if that’s still an acceptable phrase — is the £6.8 billion acquisition of the Asda supermarket chain by Blackburn-born self-made billionaires Mohsin and Zuber Issa. Sons of Gujarati immigrants, these brothers have advanced from a single petrol station in Bury to a chain of almost 6,000 in ten countries with convenience stores and coffee shops attached. Now their company EG Group has brought Asda back into British ownership after two decades as part of Walmart, the big-box monster of American shopping.

The pair’s success has been built on boosting the profitability of fuel retailing, in an era when big oil companies were pulling out of that market, by adding more consumer choices, including the (to me rather forlorn) concept of the UK’s first drive-through Starbucks outlets. They are also philanthropists who keep a relatively modest personal profile despite negative media attention for building multiple mansions in Blackburn and a neighbour-annoying mega-basement in Knightsbridge.