Glamorous accountant stated to have pushed wedge between Asda’s brothers

During Ramadan final 12 months — the Islamic holy month when Muslims quick throughout the hours of daylight — Victoria Price posted a brief video on-line during which she extolled the virtues of the spiritual apply.

‘It simply feels so inclusive and so good and such a privilege,’ gushed the high-flying accountant, who went with out meals and water for a day as a part of an annual office problem organised by her firm Ernst & Young (EY).

Few might have didn’t have observed the glint of the £50,000 diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand as she spoke to the digicam, hinting there was extra to her life than work and the workplace.

But what a few of her colleagues on the ‘Big Four’ agency — one of many largest skilled providers firms on the planet — might not have realised was that the twice-divorced mom of three was already within the throes of a romance with one in all EY’s greatest purchasers.

Step ahead billionaire Mohsin Issa CBE, co-owner of British grocery store Asda.

For, because the Mail revealed final week, the 52-year-old father of two and religious Muslim has walked out on his devastated spouse of almost 30 years, Shamim, and brought up with glamorous 41-year-old Ms Price, inflicting a serious rift along with his 51-year-old brother and enterprise associate Zuber Issa and infuriating his estranged in-laws.

‘Mohsin has disrespected our household by how he has handled Shamim,’ a relative advised the Mail this week. ‘He has introduced disgrace on each households. The household identify has been broken by what Mohsin has achieved.’

Most worrying of all is that this wedge between two of Britain’s most profitable entrepreneurs coincides with rising issues amongst MPs about the way forward for Asda, the UK’s third greatest grocery store. 

Back in October 2020, Rishi Sunak, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, tweeted his delight on the grocery store’s return to ‘majority UK possession for the primary time in 20 years’ after the Issa brothers, alongside a personal fairness group, acquired Asda in 2020 from U.S. retail large Walmart utilizing £6.8 billion price of loans.

But three years on, the corporate, which has greater than 145,000 workers, is battling mounting money owed, inflationary pressures and a falling market share.

At a time when the brothers is likely to be anticipated to drag collectively for the sake of their enterprise empire, Mohsin’s ongoing relationship with Ms Price, who left faculty at 17 after falling pregnant and later studied accountancy by way of night lessons, is outwardly driving them aside.

For the previous 5 years, the Issas have been constructing a compound of 5 palatial houses in Blackburn, Lancashire, the place they supposed to stay along with their wives, who’re shut mates, and different members of the family.

They additionally collectively personal a £25 million mansion in London’s Knightsbridge, which they have been increasing with the addition of a basement swimming pool, a cinema and a carpark.

But having left his spouse of almost 30 years and received engaged to Ms Price — along with her £50,000 ‘day’ ring, she is alleged by mates to have been given a second ‘night’ ring original from a ten carat diamond and price £1 million — Mr Issa has purchased an £18.2 million Neo-Georgian mansion within the Lancashire market city of Clitheroe the place he now lives along with his new, if considerably unlikely, love.

He and £800,000-a-year tax adviser Ms Price who, mates advised the Mail this week, has transformed to Islam since leaving her second husband and falling in love with Mr Issa, have confirmed to this newspaper that they’re ‘constructing a life collectively’.

But they’ve denied that their relationship represented any skilled battle of curiosity in what’s a tightly regulated trade, although EY had been auditing Asda on the time the pair fell in love.

Lawyers for the couple stress that Ms Price by no means labored on the Asda audit and made ‘all applicable disclosures’ to EY’s ethics and compliance committee, though she has, up to now, suggested Mr Issa and his two grownup kids on tax affairs.

Ms Price left EY final July, a day after the agency resigned as Asda’s auditor.

She was additionally a key determine in EY’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ scheme and offered Mohsin and Zuber Issa with the coveted annual trophy, firstly at regional stage for the ‘North’ in June 2018 and once more on the UK finals in November that 12 months.

Ms Price, sporting a surprising purple night robe, and Mr Issa, sporting a tuxedo, had been photographed on stage collectively in matches of laughter. They each travelled to Monaco the next 12 months for EY’s ‘World Entrepreneur of the Year’.

A pal of Ms Price advised me this week that they first met via work in 2016 — a 12 months earlier than Ms Price married her second husband, fellow EY accountant Alastair Nuttall, however that their relationship was ‘a slow-burner’ and did not burgeon into romance till 2022.

Ms Price filed for a divorce from her second husband in December 2021, however did not transfer out of their £800,000 barn conversion in a village outdoors Chester till September 2022.

‘She knowledgeable her bosses at EY as quickly as the connection turned greater than platonic,’ stated the pal, who added that the early phases of the pair’s relationship had revolved round ‘old style courting’ due to Mr Issa’s faith and that they did not pursue the bodily facet of their relationship till that they had each determined to divorce.

‘It was actually going for walks and stuff like that. The actual sensitivity was the Issa brothers’ faith and the battle with Mohsin’s spiritual beliefs.’

The pal added that now Ms Price was ‘absolutely embracing the connection and each side of it. She does not do something by halves’.

Indeed, Ms Price has lengthy been a high-profile determine on the planet of UK enterprise and finance, partly due to her extraordinary and spectacular rise to the highest from troublesome beginnings.

The daughter of a surveyor and a faculty trainer, Victoria Nicholls was simply 17 and finding out for A-levels when she left Wirral Grammar School for Girls after turning into pregnant by a person who was 12 years her senior.

While awaiting the beginning of her youngster she offered calendars on a market stall, labored as a waitress in a Chinese restaurant and as an assistant in a clothes retailer.

Her first youngster, a son, was born seven weeks untimely and she or he spent two weeks in hospital after struggling pre-eclampsia.

An unlikely begin, maybe, for one of many UK’s main businesswomen however Ms Price, a number one advocate for ladies in enterprise and for part-time and versatile working, has incessantly spoken of how she juggled motherhood together with her research and finally obtained three A-levels.

Unable to afford to go to college, she has advised mates that she taught herself to develop into an accountant and acquired a prize for acquiring one of many highest marks within the nation when she sat her Association of Chartered Certified Accountants exams.

She started her profession at Chester accountancy agency Tollit & Stockton earlier than becoming a member of EY on a part-time foundation aged 23 in 2006, the identical 12 months she received married at Chester city corridor to fellow accountant Ian Price, whom she met at work.

By that point they already had a toddler collectively, a daughter born in 2005. Ms Price’s third youngster, one other son, arrived in 2008.

Their relationship ended not lengthy after the loss of life of Ms Price’s father in 2013 and she or he had an affair with married EY accountant and father of two Alastair Nuttall. Ms Price wore a sublime lace robe for his or her lavish white wedding ceremony in August 2017 at a boutique lodge in Chester.

She has incessantly spoken to her friends about how she juggles her personal {and professional} life.

Speaking in 2021 after being named as one of many UK’s 25 prime ‘energy part-timers’, she stated: ‘I imagine that hanging the suitable, but versatile steadiness, has allowed me to efficiently construct my total profession.

‘Becoming a mum at 18 confirmed me that there’ll all the time be one thing extra necessary than my job, but it drives me to succeed.

‘Having flexibility implies that the children are in little question that they’re the precedence and that I’ll all the time be there on the necessary occasions of their lives.’

Speaking about her new relationship this week, a supply stated: ‘There’s all the time drama round her. What’s occurred is not any shock to me.’

Ms Price’s spectacular rise to the highest is matched solely by the Issa brothers’ personal rags-to-riches story.

The sons of Indian immigrants who got here to the UK within the Seventies to work in Blackburn’s wool and cotton mills, they grew up in a tiny terraced home in Blackburn’s Balaclava Street.

Their entrepreneurial father, Vali, who died in 2021, went on to work within the rag commerce and the constructing trade earlier than shopping for a petroleum station during which the teenage Mohsin and Zuber, who’s a 12 months youthful, labored.

While the brothers struggled academically and left faculty at 16, they each had heads for enterprise. While working for his or her father they got here up with the concept of putting in comfort shops on petrol station forecourts, going past the tobacco, confectionery and newspapers that the majority filling stations stocked on the time.

Zuber purchased his first rundown storage in Bury for £150,000 in 2001 after which started shopping for up and redeveloping forecourts throughout the UK. As his enterprise, Euro Garages — later named EG Group — expanded, he introduced Mohsin on board. In 2016, across the time Mohsin Issa first met Victoria Price, the Issas joined forces with personal fairness group TDR, promoting a stake of their enterprise for £700 million.

They continued to increase, opening up franchises akin to Starbucks, KFC, Greggs and Burger King at their petrol stations and shopping for up wholesome fast-food chain Leon.

They continued increasing at break-neck velocity and in 2021, the 12 months their father, Vali, died, they introduced the acquisition of Asda from U.S. retail large Walmart.

Publicity shy and deeply spiritual, Zuber’s spouse Asma, who in 2021 spoke to Radio 4 in regards to the brothers for its Profile collection, stated that Islam was ‘all the time on the forefront’ of every part they do.

‘I do not suppose something will ever surpass religion,’ she stated. ‘From the second they get up till evening time. They by no means miss a prayer. Like we now have 5 prayers a day.’

For this motive, the Issas refuse to promote alcohol from any of their storage websites.

Asma, whose marriage to Zuber was organized by their dad and mom, additionally gave an perception into the brothers’ characters.

‘Zuber is well approachable. He’s kinder. Mohsin could be very work-orientated.’

She added that the lightning velocity of the household’s success was ‘unbelievable’.

‘Our life is past one thing we now have dreamed or imagined. It’s like the large bang, the way it occurred,’ she stated.

Of course she was talking earlier than her brother-in-law, Mohsin, dropped the bombshell that he was leaving his spouse for Ms Price, a call from which, in accordance with the relative who spoke to the Mail this week, the household continues to be reeling.

Amid the rising household rift, there may be now hypothesis that Zuber Issa is planning to interrupt away from his brother. There had been stories final week that he has already mentioned promoting his 22.5 per cent stake in Asda for upwards of £500 million and will use the cash to purchase Mohsin out of EG Group and refocus on his authentic petrol station enterprise.

Speaking to the Mail earlier this week, one other Issa household supply stated: ‘Family-run companies have totally different chemistry and the breakdown in relations between the brothers has made the enterprise facet of issues harder.’

As for Ms Price, she is displaying no indicators of taking her foot off the pedal regardless of her romance with a person listed, alongside along with his brother, because the fortieth wealthiest UK particular person within the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List.

The pal who spoke to the Mail this week stated: ‘Anybody who is aware of Victoria is aware of she is fiercely bold. She actually got here from nothing and was advised she would by no means obtain something.

And though she’s in a relationship with somebody who on paper is a multi-billionaire, she’s by no means going to be a stored lady.’

Having left EY in July final 12 months, Ms Price just lately began a brand new job as head of personal capital at consultancy agency Alvarez & Marsal.

Writing on enterprise networking web site LinkedIn final week, she stated that it was ‘good to be again’.

After waxing lyrical about her new function she signed off with the pithiest — and most telling — of maxims. ‘Love what you do, love who you do it with.’