Asda backer raises £3.3bn from property sales as market share slides

The private equity owners of Asda and Morrisons have raised about £6.5bn by selling parts of the supermarkets’ UK property estates, as they seek to reduce the debt loads taken on to fund the acquisitions.

According to the Financial Times, most of the money was generated through the sale of supermarkets, petrol forecourts and distribution centres.

London-based TDR Capital raised about £3.3bn from Asda’s property assets since acquiring the supermarket chain in 2021 for £6.8bn alongside the Issa brothers.

TDR used proceeds from a £1.7bn sale-and-leaseback of 27 distribution warehouses with private capital group Blackstone to help finance its purchase of Asda.

In November, the firm strengthened Asda’s balance sheet by raising a further £568m through two sale-and-leaseback deals involving supermarket sites.

It comes as Asda’s market share in the grocer sector fell from 14.4% to 11.5% in the 12 weeks to 28 December 2025, according to new data from Kantar. 

Tesco sales were 4.3% higher than in 2024, with its share rising by 0.2 percentage points to 28.7%, the greatest proportion of the market since March 2015. Also growing ahead of the market was Aldi, with sales up 3.9%, and Waitrose up by 4.5%.

In total, take-home grocery sales hit a record £13.8bn in the four weeks to 28 December 2025, up 3.8% year on year. Grocery inflation eased slightly to 4.3%, offering modest relief to shoppers, who on average spent £476 at the supermarkets during the festive month.

While traditional, large format supermarkets accounted for 60.3% of sales over the four-week period, discounter retailers saw their biggest ever share of sales at Christmas, reaching a total of 16.8%.