UK supermarket group Asda slumped to a near £1 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 £989m in 2025 from £599m in 2024, according to annual accounts filed today.
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.
The group is majority owned by private equity firm TDR Capital. Former owner Walmart still holds 10%.
The pretax loss includes £656m of one-off costs, mainly comprised of £284m related to Asda’s troubled, but now complete, IT separation from Walmart and a £344m 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 £500m on the prior year.
Asda had reported in March that underlying earnings for 2025, or adjusted EBITDA after rent, fell 33% to £764m.
Last month, it reported another fall in quarterly underlying sales, though the pace of decline eased.
UK industry data, also published last month, showed Asda continuing to lose market share.
