Spar Group’s search for a buyer to take over its UK business, Appleby Westward Group (AWG), has been slower than expected, CEO Angelo Swartz has said.
The South African retail group said in its results for the year ending 26 September 2025, published on 8 December, that an “active process to locate a buyer was ongoing”.
“The process has been slower than we’d like, although we started to make progress in the last week or two again, and so we expect to conclude that process sometime early in the new year,” he said in a Q&A following the group’s results.
Swartz added that while the initial asking price remains open and “probably the biggest bone of contention”, Spar Group was not expecting to pay a buyer to take over the business.
“We expect to be slightly positive, although we have impaired the business down to zero. We think there’s some value in the business,” he said.
AWG is now classified as a discontinued operation after Spar Group described it as having a “really tough year”.
AWG revenues dropped 7.6% to €259.7m (£226.8m), while it fell from an operating profit of €1m (£0.9m) in the previous financial year to a loss of €6.3m (£5.5m).
The results said the cost of living crisis in the UK was impacting consumer confidence and revenues, with stores also seeing reduced footfall, although this improved slightly with better weather in summer.
The ban on single-use vapes, the recovery of Co-op from its cyberattack, and a general UK-wide decline in retail volumes have also contributed to lower revenues, it added.
Spar Group decided to divest Appleby Westward earlier this year, along with its business in Switzerland, as part of a “strategic realignment” to focus on its core markets of South Africa and Ireland, where its model “thrives”.
AWG has been owned by Spar Group since 2014, when it took an 80% stake in Irish Spar franchise owner BWG for €55m. The business supplies 300 independent convenience stores across the southwest of England, in addition to its company-owned shops.
AF Blakemore, which operates the Spar franchise in the Midlands, Wales, London and the southeast, had been previously tipped as a likely buyer.
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