By Guy Taylor
Senior executives at Motor Fuel Group, the UK’s largest independent forecourt operator, have raked in a bumper pay packet this year on the back of record profits.
Bosses at Motor Fuel Group have been granted a £60m payout by the board for hitting financial targets and on the back of £401.2m in underlying profit in 2022, according to the Times.
Profits have been boosted by surging wholesale fuel prices on the back of Ukraine war and increases in the global price of oil, with MFG’s sales rising 57 per cent to £5.6bn.
MFG currently operates around 900 forecourts across the country, under brands including Shell and Esso.
The deal, first reported by Sky News, could see Morrisons’ fuel retailing operations, which currently cover around 340 sites, brought under MFG’s control.
An additional 150 could be added to the empire under MFG as part of its bid to grow its electric vehicle (EV) charging network.
Morrisons has faced significant competition from rival retailers such as Lidl, with the deal said to help reveal financial pressure on the retail giant and comes amid growing regulatory scrutiny of Britain’s pump prices.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in July found that fuel retailers growing profit margins had jacked up prices for consumers.
Its year long investigation concluded that around £900m had been syphoned out of customers purses in total, prompting widespread political backlash and the introduction of a number of new measures to control the behaviour.
Both Morrisons and MFG are owned by the private equity group Clayton, Dubilier and Rice, which bought the company in 2015 in a £500m deal.
