Questions over office’s future as firm set to move

By Gbam Godwin On Aug 29, 2025

Questions over office’s future as firm set to move.

The future of a £35 million office building in a Lancashire town has been called into question when a billionaire retail operator decided to relocate its activities.

The EG Group, which manages a number of fuel forecourts and previously controlled ASDA, currently employs hundreds of people at its UK headquarters in Haslingden Road, Blackburn.

The company, founded 24 years ago by Blackburn brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa, is planning to move its primary core to Charlotte, North Carolina, while the Blackburn headquarters will relocate to Bolton.

Conservative councillor Paul Marrow expressed concern that the move will turn the Blackburn office into a “white elephant”.

A spokeswoman for EG Group stated that the move would result in the hiring of new employees as well as the retention of existing ones.

He stated: “We are relocating our European shared service centre from Blackburn to Bolton, Greater Manchester.

This will allow us to hire new and retain current talented UK employees.” When asked if the relocation will result in any redundancies, the representative declined to respond.

Purpose-built offices

The brothers built the company from a single petrol station in Bury, Greater Manchester, to a multibillion-pound conglomerate that owns thousands of forecourts throughout the UK, Europe, North America, and Australia, as well as ASDA.

Marrow and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council’s growth chief, Quesir Mahmood, was responding to an announcement in EG Group’s second-quarter business update that raised concerns over the future of its employees and the use of its £35 million purpose-built facilities, which debuted in 2020. The brothers acquired ASDA for £6.8 billion in 2020, but they have since left the grocery firm.

Over the last 15 months, the two brothers have stepped down as EG Group’s co-chief executives while remaining on the board. Zuber Issa is now concentrating on his independent company, EG On The Move, which purchased the group’s UK forecourt business for £228 million in January.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service stated that it will continue to be situated in Blackburn. Mahmood stated, “We are saddened to see some aspects of the EG business leave the borough.

“For more than two decades, EG Group has grown from its Blackburn roots into a global success story.” Marrow stated that the transfer to Bolton had “saddened” him.

He went on: “We need to ensure the current HQ office does not become a white elephant and we can only hope that it can be filled with other businesses and that Blackburn-based staff will be moved to the new offices.”