Private equity firm Blackstone and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund have paid themselves £4m in dividends from their ownership of four Morrisons supermarket buildings. The pair acquired the sites in Maldon, Stockport, Harrogate and Newcastle for £110m in 2023 as part of a sale and leaseback arrangement, which saw the supermarket chain sell off a chunk of its property portfolio.
The holding company set up to collect rent for the sites, administered by CSC Corporate Services, funded the acquisition via a £66m loan from Israeli bank Leumi, company filings show. The firm generated rents of £9.3m from the four sites in 2025, a rise of 11.2 per cent on the previous year. It turned a profit of £2.2m, a near-doubling compared to 2024.
“The UK economy continued to stabilise during 2025 following the period of heightened volatility experienced in prior years,” the company said in a statement. “This easing in inflation reflected a combination of lower energy price volatility, improving supply conditions and tighter monetary policy filtering through to the wider economy.”
Sale and leaseback craze
The figures offer a rare glimpse into private equity firms reaping the rewards of a wave of retail and hospitality businesses selling off their land assets to free up cash and move to a ‘capital light’ business model. Morrisons’ rival Asda, acquired from US firm Walmart by the billionaire Issa brothers and TDR Capital in 2021, has entered into similar sale and leaseback agreements to help bear down on the company’s debt.
Last week, Premier Inn owner Whitbread unveiled plans to raise £1.5bn by selling off the freehold rights to a raft of hotels owned by the FTSE 100 firm. Morrisons was previously listed on the London Stock Exchange before being acquired by US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice in 2021.
Morrisons posted a slowdown in sales growth of 3 per cent in its latest results, leaving it in danger of losing its status as Britain’s fifth biggest supermarket by rapidly-growing Lidl. In April 2024, Morrisons sold its forecourt arm to Motor Fuel Group in a £2.5bn deal, with the proceeds accounting for around 95 per cent of the supermarket’s profit that year.
