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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. Article continues below 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.”