The Rise of the ESA Brothers

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The ESA brothers used their gas station empire as a launch pad to buy one of the UK's biggest brands, Azda. The big part of this story is TDR, a private equity firm that the ESA brothers have partnered with for years. Zuber actually mentioned TDR in the company announcement you just heard. I think what the brothers are all about is growth. They're willing to take risks and that aligns very well with the TDR model of how they do financing,. That's what private equity firms do. They borrow to buy companies, hoping to turn them around and resell them for a profit.

Saudi Arabia is cutting oil production, Turkey has a new finance minister and Apple is unveiling a mixed-reality headset today. Plus, the FT’s Kaye Wiggins explains how Asda has been able to take on enormous debt and whether its luck is about to change.

Mentioned in this podcast:

Virtual reality start-ups pin hopes on Apple to lure back funding

Saudi Arabia seeks to boost oil price with output cut of 1mn barrels a day

Asda chair defends £2.3bn deal for UK operations of sister group EG

Turkey’s new finance minister pledges to return to “rational” economic policy

The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson and Marc Filippino. The show’s editor is Jess Smith. Additional help by Katie McMurran, Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva and Gavin Kallmann. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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