Sainsbury’s is to sell Argos to Swift Partners for around £120m – substantially less than the £1.4bn it paid for the brand in 2016.
Sainsbury’s said it would be “business as usual” for Argos customers, colleagues and suppliers. Shoppers will notice no changes, as Argos will continue to operate within Sainsbury’s stores, sell Habitat products and offer Nectar points.
The buyer, Swift Partners, is a newly established company created to acquire the Argos brand. It includes former Co-operative Group chief executive Richard Pennycook.
Argos currently operates 667 stores across the UK, comprising 201 standalone shops and 466 concessions within Sainsbury’s stores. It also has more than 450 collection points.
Founded in 1973, Argos became known for its distinctive shopping model, where customers browsed printed catalogues before placing their orders. Items were then brought to the collection desks from stockrooms linked to the stores.
The Argos catalogue, once described by comedian Bill Bailey as the “laminated book of dreams”, was for many years a familiar fixture in British homes.
Today, Argos no longer prints the catalogue, with its full product range available online instead. In stores, customers can browse the range using tablet devices.
Sainsbury’s has been seeking a buyer for Argos, which has long been regarded as an underperforming part of the business.
The supermarket acquired Argos, along with Habitat and the other retail brands owned by Home Retail Group, in 2016 for £1.4bn. In 2024, it sold Argos Financial Services, which operates the Argos Card, for around £720m.
Last September, talks to sell the remainder of Argos to Chinese online retailer JD.com collapsed.
Sainsbury’s chief executive Simon Roberts said that all of Argos’s nearly 14,000 employees would transfer to Swift Partners as part of the deal.
He also confirmed that Argos would continue to trade from Sainsbury’s stores, Nectar would remain available across both brands, and Sainsbury’s would continue to sell Habitat products.
Richard Pennycook of Swift Partners said he believed “strongly in Argos’s future and see real opportunities to invest and build on its progress”.
The transaction is expected to complete in February next year.
Pennycook also said there was potential to open new standalone Argos stores and did not rule out the possibility of bringing back the printed catalogue.
