Aldi debt jumps by £100m as profit slips at discount grocer
Aldi took on more than £100m in net debt last year, as the discount grocer’s profit slipped despite its blockbuster expansion plans.
The supermarket chain, the UK’s fourth largest, saw its net debt grow by a fifth in 2025, from £717m to £862m.
Aldi’s jump in debt comes despite the grocer’s plans to expand rapidly in the UK. Last week, chief executive Giles Hurley announced £900m in funding to open 40 new stores next year.
Hurley said last week that the supermarket’s operating profit held steady at £433m last year, though new company filings show its pre-tax profit slipped from £416m to £400m.
The family-owned grocer’s workforce fell from 50,655 to 49,661 in the year to December 2025, its filings revealed, suggesting it cut about 1,000 staff in the year.
Despite the falling headcount, the supermarket chain’s wage costs jumped from £1.43bn to £1.46bn.
Aldi eyes more market share
Aldi’s increase in debt comes from borrowing from its parent company, rather than external lending from banks, it is understood. The grocer’s debt pile, while rising, remains well below that of some of its private-equity-owned rivals.
Net debt at Morrisons, which is owned by New York-based Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, jumped from £7.1bn to £7.5bn in the year to October. Asda, owned by London-based TDR Capital, has debts of £3.5bn.
While Asda and Morrisons have sought to sell off the freehold rights to some of its shops in a bid to push down their debt piles, Aldi is hoping to put more pressure on the UK’s ‘big four’ supermarkets.
Aldi and fellow German discounter Lidl have surged to dominance of Britain’s grocery market in recent decades. Morrisons is now the UK’s fifth-biggest supermarket, having been leapfrogged by Aldi in 2022.
Aldi is within one per cent of Asda’s market share, though its control of the market has weakened from 10.8 to 10.6 per cent over the past year, according to figures from Worldpanel.
Announcing the grocer’s results last week, Hurley hit out at rival supermarkets for offering loyalty discounts, which he says give shoppers a misleading impression of value.
He told reporters: “One of the drivers of their growth is the fact that their retail prices are going up, and some of them are seeing volume decline at the same time.
“We are driving prices down, and we’re growing our volumes, and that is hugely important in continuing to reinforce our confidence around growing our business and expanding.”
Aldi UK is part of the grocery chain’s Aldi Sud branch, which is controlled by the heirs of Karl Albrecht. He co-founded the grocer with his brother, Theo, in 1946.
Aldi was contacted for comment.