The owners of the petrol stations business EG Group have raised expensive debt-like financing from sovereign wealth and pension funds, handing them hundreds of millions of pounds in fresh cash that could help fund their buyout of the UK supermarket chain Asda.
Brothers Mohsin Issa and Zuber Issa, and the private equity firm TDR Capital, raised the fresh funds at the Jersey holding company through which they own the heavily indebted petrol pump operator.
On Thursday, the offshore vehicle sold new preference shares — considered halfway between debt and traditional equity — to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) and two Canadian pension funds, the Alberta Investment Management Corporation and PSP Investments.
Holders of preference shares receive interest payments that accrue and compound over time but do not hold a stake or any voting rights in the company.
EG itself will not benefit from the funds raised, the group confirmed, though its Jersey holding company is ultimately liable to pay interest on the preference shares. It comes after the brothers and their private equity backers agreed to buy Asda, the UK’s third-largest supermarket group, in a £6.8bn deal announced last month.
No comments:
Post a Comment