Asda announces plans to sell 20 uk stores 'to raise £400m'

THE SUPERMARKET HOPES THE SALE WILL RAISE £400 MILLION 15:20, 21 May 2025 Asda is reportedly planning to sell around 20 stores in order to raise £400 million after it experienced a

"disappointing" sales year. As part of the plans, Asda allegedly plans to offload the stores before leasing them back for around 20 years, the Mirror reports. To oversee the sale

Asda has appointed property advisor Eastdil Secured, according to Green Street News. On the plans, a spokesman for Asda said: “Sale-and-leasebacks have been a feature of the retail industry

for many years. “While maintaining a strong freehold base remains central to Asda’s property strategy, we will consider suitable opportunities to unlock value from our property portfolio as

part of our material programme of investment into the business.” The decision comes after Allan Leighton, the Chair of Asda, returned to the supermarket last November after 25 years with new

plans for a major turnaround for the store. Some of the measures he has introduced already include Asda bringing back its Rollback pricing scheme, which saw the prices cut on more than

4,000 products in store and online by an average of 25 %. Figures for the store show that Asda achieved just under £22billion in total sales last year, excluding fuel, which marked the store

as being 0.8% down on its sales from the previous year. The major supermarket additionally ended the year with a net debt of £3.8 billion and about £800,000 cash on its balance sheet.

However, while the new chief executive has set out plans for improvement, he warned in March this year that there would be no “quick fix” to get the supermarket back on track. The major

supermarket additionally ended the year with a net debt of £3.8 billion and about £800,000 cash on its balance sheet. Mr Leighton said its sales last year were “disappointing” and its profit

was “OK-ish”, adding: “Obviously there are one or two things that we need to fix: our pricing, our availability, and our range architecture – that has all started … we’re starting to make

some progress. “We’re flagging a significant investment back into the business, and that is going to materially reduce our profit in the short term as we rebuild the business and we rebuild

our market share.“ Asda has previously also raised concerns over business costs due to the rise of minimum wage and changes to National Insurance. Following these changes the supermarket

expects business costs to surge to between £75 million and £80 million. Article continues below Mr Leighton said: “Like everybody else, we have to face into that. We’re managing those cost

headwinds, but at the same time investing significantly in the growth of the company. “That’s why we flagged it will have a material impact on our profitability, because we’re determined to

invest in the company for the mid and long term, not for the short term.”