UK supermarket Asda slumps to near £1 billion annual loss

By James Davey

LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - British supermarket group Asda slumped to a near £1 billion ($1.3 billion) loss last year, reflecting executive chairman Allan Leighton's push to cut prices in an effort to win back shoppers and a raft of one-off costs.

Britain's third-biggest grocer after Tesco and Sainsbury's saw its pretax loss widen to £989 million in 2025 from £599 million in 2024, according to annual accounts filed on Friday. Total sales, including fuel, fell 3.4% to £25.9 billion.

Leighton - who returned to Asda in November 2024, more than two decades after he served as CEO - had warned in March 2025 that his plan to be 5% to 10% cheaper than traditional rivals would "materially reduce" 2025 profit and said rebuilding Asda would take up to five years.

ONE-OFF COSTS

The group is majority owned by private equity firm TDR Capital. Former owner Walmart still holds 10%.

The pretax loss includes £656 million of one-off costs, mainly comprised of £284 million related to Asda's troubled, but now complete, IT separation from Walmart and a £344 million non-cash impairment after a revaluation of Asda's property portfolio.

“The reported loss does not reflect the underlying financial strength of the business and continued powerful cash generation," a spokesperson for Asda said, noting the group had a strong balance sheet, with £1.3 billion in cash and £2.1 billion of total liquidity at the year end, and the majority of borrowings secured into the next decade.

Net debt was £3.1 billion, a reduction of £500 million on the prior year.

Asda had reported in March that underlying earnings for 2025, or adjusted EBITDA after rent, fell 33% to £764 million.

Last month, it reported another fall in quarterly underlying sales, though the pace of decline eased.

Industry data, also published last month, showed Asda continuing to lose market share.

($1 = 0.7557 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey. Editing by Mark Potter)