Sainsburys agrees to sell Argos for £120m

Sainsbury’s has agreed to sell Argos for £120m after a long process of trying to offload it as the supermarket chain aims to focus on its main food business.

Sainsbury’s said it would be “business as usual” for Argos customers, staff, and suppliers. Shoppers will see no change as Argos will still operate in Sainsbury’s shops, sell Habitat products, and offer Nectar points.

The buyer, Swift Partners, is a company that has been created to buy the brand and includes former Co-operative Group boss Richard Pennycook.

There are 667 Argos shops across the UK, with 201 operating as standalone stores and 466 operating within Sainsbury’s. It also has more than 450 collection points.

Founded in 1973, Argos opened shops where customers browsed its catalogues and placed their orders, with products being delivered to tills from warehouses connected to the stores.

The Argos catalogue, once described by comedian Bill Bailey as the “laminated book of dreams”, used to be a physical book.

Argos no longer prints this hefty tome, with its full range now available online instead. In store, customers can browse the product collection on tablet computers.

Sainsbury’s has been trying to sell Argos – which has been seen as an underperforming brand – for some time.

Sainsbury’s bought Argos – together with Habitat and all the other retail brands owned by Home Retail Group – in 2016 for £1.4bn. It then sold Argos financial services, which runs the Argos card, for around £720m in 2024.

In September last year, its talks to sell the rest of Argos to Chinese online retailer JD.com fell through.

Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon Robert said that all of Argos’s nearly 14,000 staff would be transferred over to Swift Partners as part of the deal.

He also confirmed that Argos would continue to operate in Sainsbury’s shops; Nectar will continue to be used across both Argos and Sainsbury’s; and Sainsbury’s will continue to sell Habitat products

Swift Partners’ Pennycook said he believed “strongly in Argos’s future and see real opportunities to invest and build on its progress”.

The deal is expected to be completed in February next year.

Pennycook said there was the potential to open new standalone Argos shops – and did not rule out the possibility of the return of its print catalogue.