Wal-Mart’s Asda re-shuffle
The ownership structure of Britain’s second biggest supermarket, Asda, has been re-vamped after Wal-Mart let its subsidiary sell the supermarket chain to a fellow Wal-Mart owned investment vehicle called Corinth Services. Last night it was revealed that the world’s largest retailer Wal-Mart embarked on a technical group restructuring. While Wal-Mart is still the parent company of Asda, Wal-Mart Stores sold 3.1bn shares in Asda in return for a £5.7bn cash payment from Corinth and £1.24bn shares – just £200m more than Wal-Mart paid in 1999. Corinth is now the new parent company of Asda, having previously been a subsidiary.