Wolfe Power Club
The Wolfe Power Club Podcast is an exciting platform for exploring crucial topics in the energy sector! With a focus on investment trends, governmental policies, and the evolving landscape of energy consumption, it promises to provide valuable insights for both industry professionals and the general public.
Host Alex Wolfe's background as an Energy director and experience in opening the first HVO Truck Bunker in Britain undoubtedly brings a wealth of expertise to the discussions. By engaging with guests who possess diverse perspectives and opinions on energy-related issues, the podcast is likely to offer a well-rounded exploration of the sector's challenges and opportunities.
Every guest will answer the big 3 questions:
- Where are you investing in Energy Industry?
- What do you want from the Government?
- What do you want Energy Customers to do?
Wolfe Power Club
Rags to Riches: The Issa Billionaire Brothers’ journey to the ASDA Empire | S1EP45
On this week's episode, host Alex reflects on the recent publishing of the British Sunday Times Rich List which included the Blackburn billionaires that rank a respective 32nd position.
Alex covers the remarkable journey of the Issa brothers from purchasing their first petrol station in Bury for £150,000 to becoming billionaires worth £6 billion. Their entrepreneurial story demonstrates how two brothers from working-class Blackburn built an international business empire spanning 9 countries with nearly 6,000 sites and 44,000 employees. We also look into their involvements at ASDA and Euro Garages and what the future could look like.
DISCLAIMER: Wolfe Power Club is not affiliated with the Sunday Times, Alex is just a massive fan!
CREDITS
The Sunday Times Rich List 2025
Call to Action:
- A focus on investment trends, governmental policies, and the evolving landscape of energy consumption, it promises to provide valuable insights for both industry professionals and the general public.
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Season One is sponsored by Aim Recruit – https://aimrecruit.com/
Aim Recruit is an expert recruiter for transport, logistics and energy positions.
What happened then is just one of the great entrepreneurial stories. In the late 1990s, the Easer brothers decided to buy their first petrol station in Bury. This is where now the story's up to the latest. There's absolutely no rift between myself and Zubair. We talk to each other probably two or three times a day when supermarkets were mainly run as supermarket businesses. Not only does that hurt the rest of the industry, but essentially paying across.
Speaker 1:So this week is a week of celebration. We're going to look at the boys from Blackburn who have become billionaires. Not only did they make billions, but they're 32nd on the rich list in Britain this year. And then the next bit we're going to look at the Easer brothers. We're going to look at the past, the present and the future. And what does this mean for Asda and Eurogarages as we go into the new year? This is a celebration. Wipe away those tears, wipe away those miseries, tune in, relax and hear a story how you could be inspired about becoming a billionaire in this industry.
Speaker 1:I find that too much at the moment in Britain is about how we're missing economic targets, how growth is not there, how people are leaving the country. So I wanted to celebrate two brothers that don't always get an easy time in the press, and I feel that a lot of the negative press comes from people that are either angry that people have made money out of petrol pump prices or angry because, essentially, someone has gone about, pushed the limits of the business possibilities and won, and they just don't respect it. Today I'm celebrating the career of the Easer brothers, and where did it all begin? And, before we go into where it will begin, I also just wanted to thank from the sunday times, because I find it one of the most enjoyable bits of the year, and you can see the copy. Behind me is robert watts, who compiles the rich list. Now, for anyone who doesn't know is listening to our 65 countries. Every may, the sunday times produces a list of the top 350 people or so, the wealthiest people in Britain. Now some people will have criticism for those people. I, on the other hand, celebrate their success and what they're doing. There's some wonderful pages in the Rich List going into the details of the philanthropy they do, the jobs they've created and the tax they've paid in Britain.
Speaker 1:Just think about this fact for a second before we talk about the Iser brothers. Collectively, the top one percent in Britain pay for 28 percent of the taxes that the treasury spends, so that means over a quarter of the money that the treasury spends, the government comes from the top one percent. Now people might be critical there's not more wealth creation or wealth spreading, but also you've got to say that without these people in this country, then essentially the uk has challenges ahead, and what also came out in this year's edition but we really hope to get robert Watts on the podcast to talk about specifically the rankings of the energy people is that we have seen a drop in the total net wealth has dropped by over three percent and that's down to billionaires leaving the UK, coming resident elsewhere, and a huge trigger has been the current government. We need to keep these people, their infrastructure, their jobs in this country and some haven't moved miles away. They've gone from the united kingdom to places like jersey or the isle of man and therefore we think it's very possible that with the great government processes we can do these people could well return and their investment into the country.
Speaker 1:But today is a celebration of the easer brothers. A lot people are probably putting their comments below now. Alex, you're just a fuel guy backing up the fuel guys and you want some critical acclaim. Not everything they did is perfect, but what they've done is a truly remarkable story. So let's roll back to the 1960s. The Easer Brothers' parents came from India to make a life for themselves in britain and what happened then is just one of the great entrepreneurial stories. In the late 1990s, the easer brothers decide to buy their first petrol station in berry and you'll see the picture now. It's now beautifully done up about the Eurogarages group and for our international listeners.
Speaker 1:Berry is on the outskirts of Manchester and the Easer brothers grew up in Blackburn. It's a real working class place. Blackburn Terrace House is not a huge amount of wealth. Obviously there's highlights with Blackburn in 95 when they won the Premier League under local guy Jack Walker, funding the likes of Alan Shearer but genuinely, like Blackburn, is a place that's considered of a lower economic wealth in Britain and is a certainly a working class of good people, but essentially it's not a glamorous place at all a glamorous place at all. Now berry also likewise very working place and is a classic sort of commuter town into manchester and is and is very, very close to manchester and just on the outskirts and it's considered part of greater manchester. Now what I just want to echo on at this point is these two guys have spent 150 000 pounds all of their life savings on this petrol station and it's probably everyone thinking, oh, petrol stations make loads of money.
Speaker 1:The reality, I would say, in the United Kingdom is, until you've got a group of about four to six sites, with some of those sites having really good volumes and really good shops, the reality is is that to make profit from a petrol station is very hard. There's a number of different factors. In that one you're selling something that's very low margin in terms of fuel, so you only need a few things like drive-offs and stuff to hit your day's trading. The next bit is to running the shops and, when you're on small multiples, looking after that product and, you know, sell return items again, several items that people mainly come for, like cigarettes and stuff, have very, very, very low margins. And then also there will be big challenges to give discounts on things like meal deals and so on. And the reality is you'll see lots of single site operators either sell up, close down or the site come a block of flats. So it's very rare that you see a single site operator do particularly well, I would say, once you've got about four or six and you're on some sort of franchise agreement or something with one of the big players, that's when actually it gets interesting and you start making an all right living.
Speaker 1:But it's a tough living. You know, a lot of these businesses are 24 hours. You do get difficulties with security, whether it's people attempting to take cash or cigarettes or shoplifting. You do get the challenges of health and safety and it's crazy. Some of the things I've seen in my time. That's a whole separate episode that we can do. And what I like about the Issa brothers is, although I don't know them well, I have met them at a number of conferences they are genuinely hardworking retailers. They know that old saying we talk about in petrol stations. You know, retail is detail and these guys are understood it perfectly well in my opinion. So then what happens is, at some point along the journey they team up with a group called tdr capital and they create what's now known as the euro garages brand.
Speaker 1:Now euro garages, where I think they were brilliant. Was they really brought to concept the idea that actually a petrol station could be the home for your starbucks coffee? Now I know people in cities are like, yeah, well, starbucks are everywhere, but the reality is, before euro garages did this roll out of starbucks across the uk, there was some hit and miss coffee sites across the uk. Now I'm not a total fan into starbucks and, uh, I know my ba works for an independent coffee shop as well will be screaming at me going yeah, how can you do it? But I'll tell you what they did bring. They bought these very clean, nicely executed, pleasant places. A driver to spend 20 minutes to half an hour popping up around the country with the Eurogarages brand. What they also did with TDR Capital.
Speaker 1:One of the things I really hate in the sort of narrative about Eurogarages is no one knows who TDR Capital are. I would call absolute BS on this. They've got one of the most helpful websites in the world. Tells you all the roles and all the people, and they are very, very good at raising capital to help businesses and entrepreneurs grow. You've got euro garages that end up in a situation where they're in nine countries around the world, with a lot of that in the us as well as the uk. They've got nearly 6 000 sites and nearly 44 000 people. They have a turnover of around 28.3 billion. The only thing I would say is that that figure has a huge amount of fuel in it and fuels very, very low margin, so don't confuse that that sort of massive area, but that should be celebrated. The two brothers have have 44 000 now. Anyone who's got a sibling relationship I love my brother. My sister very well knows that working day in, day out has challenges, but essentially, what was to come was their biggest day of glory was also going to present some of their biggest challenges.
Speaker 1:So as we entered the 2020s, walmart, the big us grocery store, owned asda at the time and they had really been challenging challenge with this change in supermarkets in britain's. There was many sort of new brands coming over from germany likes of add-on, uh, audi and little taking on and walmart for some time had realized that they wanted to stick to the us. They wanted to sell this uk as the business and they wanted to stick to the US. They wanted to sell this UK Asda business and they wanted to move on. People were then shocked in the 2020s when essentially, it was the ESA brothers, the boys from Blackburn, that came in, but their partner behind them was TDR Capital.
Speaker 1:What a lot of people might not know is that TDR Capital have lots of businesses that actually you've probably used, like David Lloyd or Agreco or Buffalo Grills, and essentially I think they're great at owning businesses where you start or end your day, whether it's a petrol station or whether it's a David Lloyd gym, and I think that's like one characteristic you'll see amongst their group it's a real, real start end of day type business. That I think is very, very exciting. We've got a few stats up here of uh tdr capital, you know, been going uh over 20 odd years. Uh, they've invested in over 28 companies and uh, yeah, you know, they've got, you know, 15 million euros of of uh of annual investment going on. It's a fantastic group and I'd say, look at everything they do, and at this time then.
Speaker 1:So not only have you got the relationship of two brothers involved with 2DR in Mungu Sin and these are brothers that come to think and Zuba is that essentially you get unbelievably critical press from across the financial sector that these people aren't heavyweight enough. They had various accountancy firms leave, but within the first year they did a masterstroke and that masterstroke was appointing Lord Rose. Now Lord Rose is considered one of the most amazing retailers in our country. He famously led M&S in its glory layers. He then worked a lot with government about how to recreate the high street and everyone was like challenging these guys to have more credibility on the board and they bring in one of the biggest names in british retail. We'll come on to that in the future about you know lord rose. But he then goes on to serve three years lord rose from from 2021 to 24 and that, I think, actually suddenly calmed the waters. All the headlines stopped being about the finances. But then what did come along was there was challenges during covid that essentially the likes of asda not only did very well out of covid, they'd use various government schemes, but people were saying that suddenly the landscape had changed on fuel, no longer margins going significantly up and no longer do. And here's a little government clip of the the challenges that mosing got when he was in front of the committee.
Speaker 1:Uh, with parliament, did you put the margin up? It's a simple question what the strategy was just told us. You set the prices. Did you increase the price? We put the price on. Did you increase the margin? We set the strategy. Did you increase the margin? We set our price? You set the price. And what we're asking you is whether you intentionally set the price so that you would increase your margin. We set the price and then others have an opportunity to undercut us. This clip, though, for me, in my opinion, just shows how unfair the MP's questions are, and the reason I ask that is that is that essentially what they're not asking.
Speaker 1:The question is was the fuel industry making good enough revenues to cover off the masses of government taxation that comes in here? So, on government taxation, you have not only duty on fuel, not only the VAT on fuel, but then you've got the VAT on the VAT of fuel. I mean, they've got triple taxation. You then also have an industry that employs thousands of people, and since 2019, the living wage or minimum wage has gone up 67%. So you have a situation here where government is really hitting retail hard and yet the guy's having go prices going up. The other reality is and I thought was a sensible plan was that when supermarkets were mainly run as supermarket businesses by the likes of walmart and so on, they essentially had these massive price wars on fuel to bring in people, but it meant they're selling fuel as a lost leader. Not only does that hurt the rest of the industry, but essentially pain across. Now.
Speaker 1:Various things have been challenged about the margin, but I had the feeling that the actual reality is it was way too low in the first place to have businesses that covered the inflation that the likes of wages and the costs of running a site had happened, and I think that actually it's been awesome that we've got to net caribbean. We're running a petrol station is sustainable. I appreciate you, as the viewers are like alex. That's terrible. We're paying more for our fuel but to have a service that's open 24 hours a day across the country and we end up in a situation where, essentially, they calm the waters to nasdaq. They actually held their own, in my opinion, on the pricing challenges, and what you've seen then is that um, as the likes of stewart rose comes in that essentially where we conclude the present bit is that in the sunday times rich list, which is based on published figures from the prior year, they've actually put the Easer brothers' own personal fortune up from £5 billion to £6 billion, and I think that's an incredible story. So a family that moves from India to Britain, two sons that work their way up from Blackburn, buy a site in Bury for £ grand and now worth six billion pounds, and I think, if that is not the entrepreneurial dream, you're listening to the wrong podcast, because for me, that is the type of thing that needs to be celebrated in success. So I would like to say a massive well done to the Issa brothers.
Speaker 1:It's tough, though, working with your brother. It's never an easy option. So what then happens in the last 12 months and this is kind of where we go from the present to the future? Well, it was always a case of where Mosin ran the Asda side and Zubin ran the Eurogarages side, so almost the petrol station business is one way. Most of it has the other side. What you've then seen since that acquisition is Asda's petrol stations, or the Eurogarage group, rolled out across the country as one of the big providers. It now means that also Asda's outlets or they're like smaller Asda four court shops have gone out across the country, and it also what then leads is then an opportunity that essentially it's fair to say that working with brothers is not always easy, and here's a little interview about that. Now.
Speaker 1:There have been industry rumours that there has been a rift. Is everything OK? Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely no rift between myself and zube. We talk to each other, probably two or three times um a day. You get to this summer where zube sells his shares back to tdr and his brother, mosen, has left a ceo of the asda group, and that was in the summer of 2024.
Speaker 1:I'm not that surprised, because running a supermarket is very different to petrol stations and I think there always comes this element of passion and it's a bit like although I've had years involved in petrol stations, petrol pricing the concept of then going to supermarket, although they fascinate me, is not your skill set or your, your passion in the same way. So I actually tell you I understand why zuba actually went to a position of being more focused back on not just staying in the petrol stations but maybe actually not wanting to be part of the big corporate. And I think that actually any brotherly relationship where you've worked in day in, day out for the last, uh, you know, 30 odd years together is again another reason to say actually that's cool, like, like, it's amazing that two brothers have worked well and there's other brothers in the richard's, like the rubin brothers, so on and uh. But you know, like any family in business and someone who's involved in a family business, it is a different complexity to a relationship than just a normal employer, employee or shareholder or board directors, and it's great.
Speaker 1:So what then has happened as well? Well, stuart Rose has decided to step down after three years, but I think ultimately did his job amazingly well. So I think there's criticism that asda maybe didn't gain back enough market share from these um brands of audi and little that came in to sort of really rip up the space and very aggressive pricing for the likes of tesco's and the overall supermarket site. But essentially, what I think he did do sure is he calmed it. You don't hear so much anymore, as I say, three years on, of people worried about the financial acumen or what's happening um in the in the sector, um with with euro garages as the as the buyout. Uh, you know of that 6.8 billion acquisition. That happened when it was done. So what then has happened is with stuart rose stepping down. The news was announced at the end of last year that alan layton, who had been a previous uh uh leader in the asda business, was returning to his roots at asda to bring back continuity. But I also like that. If you actually look at tdr capital, they're a group that invests a long time in companies they own. And then, in addition to that, you see that ASDA's actually making sure its alumni is also part of its future.
Speaker 1:Now, there's no doubt it's a tough environment in Britain at the moment, and I know that 475 jobs were taken out of head offices, but that was probably driven, if I'm being honest, by a mixture of living wages going up, revenues dropping down because the economy's dropping post-covid. And then you've got areas such as the fierce competition from little and aldi, who are known. You know, on the grad scheme they'll pay you a great wage but you're the. You have to do two to three other jobs and uh and uh and uh, we're we're looking at. So it's um, it's uh, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a fascinating uh uh situation to be in, but essentially it's a situation where they're keeping continuity, in my opinion, and the brother that didn't really want to be part of the supermarket group has gone, but what has Zuber gone on to? Well, this is why it's perfect timing. A couple of things. Not only uh is the uh rich list out and we can celebrate these guys being in there, but this is where, now the story's up to the latest, zuber has got his Vava Vumbach and not just petrol stations. But it was announced in the last few weeks that he has made a massive acquisition of Duckmans, the lubricants brand that at various different times was part of BP, then separated from BP and he's gone into lubricants, which is like an industry that sits perfectly alongside petrol stations. The other thing that's being uh discussed at the moment is that then castrol as well is the next target of zuba. So I think we haven't heard even the final chapter yet of the easer brothers, because we still have mozine at asda and we have zuba buying up lubricant bands. I have a feeling that when we come back to the rich list next year, the blackburn billionaires have come back in strength and they have bought themselves a massive lubricants estate and we'll see the fortunes of asda.
Speaker 1:As I say, I hope you've enjoyed this story about the easer brothers and I hope that it gives you the passion that, if you are currently living in a terrace house, that actually you could only be within a few tens of decades away from billionaires. If you take that entrepreneurs thing, you work with someone like a tdr capital, you raise capital, you really passionate about retail, you grow from one site in the late 90s to 6,000 sites 25 years later. That is hardcore work and what I don't ever want to take away from these guys. It's a tough industry Employing 44,000 or 5,000 people, a 24-hour business, many people doing early nights and uh sorry, early mornings and late nights. This has to be celebrated.
Speaker 1:If you've enjoyed the wolf power club, you want to hear more about the rich list and those people in the energy sector and you want to say to real words, come on the podcast. We say guys, tune in for more. We've had a great partners day and we should have some fantastic partnerships to announce in the forthcoming months. And if anyone's interested, please contact the website and we'll be back with directions about how you can commercially get involved. I hope you enjoyed listening. Thank you for your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen.
