Zuber Issa has agreed to buy 85 petrol stations from the collapsed Prax Group, taking his three-year-old EG On The Move business to 285 forecourts and confirming that Britain’s most prolific forecourt entrepreneur is building a second fuel empire at speed.
The billionaire, who founded EG On The Move as a separate business in 2023, has already acquired EG Group’s UK operation and 98 forecourts from Applegreen. The Prax deal is the latest in that run of rapid acquisitions, and it will not surprise anyone who has watched his career that he is buying while others are selling.
For the small business owners who actually run the sites, the change of ownership is the detail that matters most. The 85 forecourts will continue to be operated by independent commission managers, with EG On The Move pledging further investment in food-to-go, electric vehicle charging, convenience retail and customer facilities.
Zuber Issa said: “We look forward to working alongside each operator to build on the strengths of their businesses, helping make every site more effective, more competitive and even more attractive to customers.”
The sites come out of one of the most spectacular corporate collapses the UK fuel sector has seen. Prax Group, founded by Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai and his wife Arani Soosaipillai, unravelled last year under mounting financial pressure, pushing several key companies into administration and triggering one of the biggest failures in the UK fuel supply chain in recent years.
The company owned the Lindsey oil refinery, at one point supplied about a tenth of Britain’s fuel, and operated forecourts under the TotalEnergies and Harvest Energy brands. Administrators have since alleged widespread financial irregularities, which Mr Soosaipillai disputes, and the conduct of the former directors remains the subject of an ongoing Insolvency Service investigation.
For entrepreneurs, the contrast between buyer and seller is instructive. Zuber Issa, 54, and his brother Mohsin bought a single garage in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 2001 and built EG Group into one of Europe’s largest petrol station operators. The brothers bought Asda in 2020 but have since split their business interests, with Zuber selling his stake in the supermarket in 2024 and turning his attention to roadside retail, alongside side ventures such as the revival of the Duckhams motor oil brand.
His renewed bet on forecourts comes even as electric and plug-in hybrid cars outsell petrol-only models in the UK for the first time. The answer, on this evidence, is to make the forecourt about far more than fuel. EG On The Move says it will work with commission operators to improve site performance while investing in grocery ranges, foodservice brands, car washes and rapid EV charging across the newly acquired network.
The timing is hardly accidental. The former EG Group forecourt business, now operating under the Cumberland Farms name, has confidentially filed for a New York stock market listing that could value it at about $9bn (£6.75bn), a move long trailed by the brothers. The listing is expected to crystallise shareholdings worth around $2.3bn each for the Issa brothers, cementing their status among Britain’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.
The transaction was advised by Cleary Gottlieb, PwC and the company’s banking partners.
For the UK’s independent forecourt operators, the lesson is a familiar one: when a major supplier fails, consolidators move quickly, and the businesses that thrive are those that have diversified beyond the pump.
