Sainsbury's Agrees to Sell Argos to Swift Partners for £120m
Supermarket giant Sainsbury's has struck a deal to sell its underperforming Argos retail brand to Swift Partners for £120m, transferring nearly 14,000 staff.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Sainsbury's has agreed to sell Argos to Swift Partners for £120m
- Nearly 14,000 Argos staff will transfer to the new owners under the deal
- The buyer has not ruled out bringing back the famous print catalogue
- The transaction is anticipated to be completed in February next year
Sainsbury's has reached an agreement to offload its high-street brand Argos to Swift Partners, a newly formed acquisition vehicle that includes former Co-operative Group boss Richard Pennycook. The deal values the retailer at £120m, drawing a line under Sainsbury's efforts to divest a brand that has been viewed as an underperforming asset within its portfolio for some time.
Argos currently operates 667 shops across the UK, comprising 201 standalone locations and 466 stores embedded within Sainsbury's supermarkets, alongside more than 450 collection points. Established in 1973, the brand pioneered a unique model where shoppers browsed physical catalogues and placed orders at counters connected directly to storage warehouses. Comedian Bill Bailey famously immortalized the hefty directory as the "laminated book of dreams." Although physical printings of this massive tome have since ceased in favor of online shopping and in-store tablet browsing, the brand remains a household name.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Sainsbury's originally acquired Argos in 2016 as part of its takeover of Home Retail Group, which included Habitat and other retail brands, for a hefty £1.4bn. The supermarket group subsequently sold off the Argos financial services division—which manages the Argos card—for approximately £720m in 2024. Discussions to sell the remaining Argos business to Chinese online retailer JD.com collapsed in September of last year.
The £120m price tag represents a stark markdown from the £1.4bn Sainsbury's paid for Home Retail Group in 2016, highlighting the grueling challenges traditional high-street general merchandise faces against pure online competitors. New leadership under Richard Pennycook hinting at a potential return for the iconic print catalogue points to a strategy leaning heavily into consumer nostalgia to revive the brand's fortunes.
Simon Roberts, chief executive of Sainsbury's, confirmed that all of Argos's nearly 14,000 employees will be transferred over to Swift Partners as part of the transaction. Pennycook acknowledged that Argos had been a suboptimal performer financially, but pointed out that future plans could include opening new standalone stores and even resurrecting the physical catalogue.
"Suboptimal performer from a financial perspective"
Richard Pennycook
In Sainsbury's most recent trading update for the first three months of this year, group-wide sales rose by 3.1%, though sales specifically attributed to Argos slipped by 0.5%. The deal is slated for formal completion in February next year.
Source: BBC Business
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