Fatcat supermarket bosses enjoy life in the fast lane - as hard-pressed motorists are ripped-off at their pumps.
The roll call includes a the Tory donor billionaire brothers at the helm of Asda.
They zip around with private jets and a Rolls-Royce.
Details of the flash transport comes days after a watchdog report slammed Asda and rivals for hiking fuel margins, leaving customers paying an estimated £900 million more last year.
Asda’s owners Mohsin and Zuber Issa completed the acquisition of the grocery chain in early 2021 alongside a private equity firm.
A neighbour in Blackburn – where the pair live at mansions in a gated complex – told how they spotted Zuber in a black Rolls Royce and Mohsin at the wheel of a top-of-the-range Land Rover.
On Friday one of their private planes touched down at Leeds Bradford airport - after setting off from Morocco.
Last year, it emerged the brothers own Bombardier Global 6000 and Bombardier Challenger 350 jets.
Earlier the pair purchased via a firm a £23 million grade II-listed property in Kensington, West London.
Electoral Commission records show the brothers’ firm, Euro Garages Limited, donated £10,000 to the Tories in 2014.
Asda’s chairman, Conservative peer Sir Stuart Rose, has a £1.2 million farmhouse in Suffolk. This week, we spotted two SUVs parked under a shelter on the driveway, including a 2017 black BMW X5 xDrive50i automatic with a powerful 4,395cc petrol engine, costing at least £64,000 new.
The other was a 2019 blue Audi E-tron Edition 55, which costs around £82,000 new.
A Competition Markets Authority report published on Monday found drivers paid about £900 million more for fuel at supermarkets in 2022 due to increased margins.
The CMA estimated a 6p per litre rise in average supermarket fuel margins from 2019 to 2022.
Asda – fined £60,000 for failing to provide information – and Morrisons were singled out by the probe.
Its report said in 2022 Asda decided “to achieve higher margins by reducing prices in some of its PFSs [petrol filling stations] more slowly than would previously have been the case as wholesale prices fell” – a tactic known as feathering.
The watchdog said: “Asda’s fuel margin target in 2023 was more than three times what it had been for 2019, while Morrisons doubled their margin target in the same period. Other retailers, including Sainsbury’s and Tesco, did not respond in the way you would expect in a competitive market and instead raised their prices in line with these changes.”
This week energy security secretary Grant Shapps said: “Some fuel retailers have been using motorists as cash cows – they jacked up their prices when fuel costs rocketed but failed to pass on savings now costs have fallen.
“It cannot be right that at a time when families are struggling with rising living costs, retailers are prioritising their bottom line, putting upwards pressure on inflation and pocketing hundreds of millions of pounds at the expense of hardworking people.”
Last night Asda said: “The CMA confirmed Asda is the UK’s cheapest fuel retailer and that the presence of an Asda petrol station in a local area keeps prices down for all motorists.
“Asda’s profits last year were down by over 20% year-on-year, resulting in a profit of 1.7p for every pound earned. This decrease is a direct result of absorbing inflation to keep grocery prices as low as possible, while investing in new initiatives to help families during the cost of living crisis.”
