- June 28, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Economy
An oak-panelled Victorian pub, The Coach Makers Arms is owned by a daisy chain of corporate entities that leads to the secretive offshore tax haven of Jersey — and ends a stone’s throw from its own front door near London’s Oxford Street.
The structure was arranged by the private equity firm TDR Capital, whose executives decided in 2017 to buy their local watering hole across the street.
Now TDR is using a similarly complex model for its biggest deal yet: the £6.8bn debt-fuelled acquisition of the supermarket chain Asda from Walmart, which the Competition and Markets Authority cleared earlier this month.
It is the UK’s largest leveraged buyout since KKR took over Alliance Boots 14 years ago. It puts the future of Asda’s 145,000 staff, and a crucial component of the country’s food supply, in the hands of investors about which little is known.
A ‘family office’
Led by former bankers Manjit Dale and Stephen Robertson, TDR was set up as…
