The owners of Asda Group Ltd. are considering piling debt onto the supermarket chain to raise the money to buy Boots, another fixture on U.K. high streets.
Brothers Zuber and Mohsin Issa, alongside TDR Capital LLP, have discussed saddling the supermarket with as much as 4.5 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) of additional debt, on top of the multi-billion pound package that funded the firm’s buyout last year, according to several people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Bids for the sale are due by May 16 and potential buyers, including a joint bid by Apollo Global Management with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, are in talks with lenders about how to finance their bids. The debt deal will likely total around 3.5 billion pounds, and the expectation is that under this ownership, Boots will eventually look to end up as an investment-grade or near investment-grade asset, the people said.
Read more: BNN Bloomberg
