Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts has confirmed Argos will continue to operate inside the supermarket’s stores and that all 14,000 staff will transfer across to Argos as part of a £120m deal to sell off the retailer.
Earlier this morning, Sainsbury’s revealed Argos will be sold to Swift – a newly established company formed by retail heavyweights Richard Pennycook, Trevor Strain and Matt Truman.
Speaking with media following the announcement, Roberts confirmed that “Argos will continue to operate inside Sainsbury’s supermarkets”, via its current ‘store in store’ and collection point models. There are currently 466 Argos outlets located in Sainsbury’s supermarkets and 201 standalone Argos stores.
“This is a really key part of the transaction,” Roberts explained. “We’ve agreed a long-term way in which those [Argos] stores will continue inside Sainsbury’s stores. Nectar will continue to be used across both Argos and Sainsbury’s and Sainsbury’s will continue to sell Habitat products.”
Pennycook, who will serve as executive chair, said that moving forward, “when Simon and the team are opening a new store, we’ll have a conversation about whether they would like us [Argos] in that store”.
“But in addition, in parts of the country where perhaps Sainsbury don’t have that representation, and we see an opportunity, we’ll be looking at potentially standalone stores,” he explained.
When questioned about whether Argos would consider operating stores with other supermarket chains, Pennycook responded that “in terms of stores within shops, we’ll be with Sainsbury’s”.
Meanwhile, Roberts confirmed that all Argos colleagues working across stores and local fulfillment centres, of which there are around 14,000, will transfer to Argos under the new ownership when the transaction completes in February 2027.
Pennycook added: “Today is business as usual. Tomorrow is business as usual. We’ll have plans, but they’re growth plans, and those are going to be developed over the coming months in partnership with the team.”
Roberts described the deal as a “win-win” for both brands. “In 2020, we said that food needed to be at the heart of Sainsbury’s, and over the last six years we’ve been totally focused on resetting that.”
He pointed out achievements including how the business has grown market share to the “highest point in 10 years”, with “nearly half a million new customers shopping in Sainsbury’s for their big week trolley shop”.
“We came to this moment believing this is exactly the right future ownership for Argos and the right time for Sainsbury’s to really focus on the core of what Sainsbury’s does.”
Pennycook added that under new ownership, there will be a “different focus”.
“We will think of Argos as the first, second and third thing we think of in the morning, and when Argos sits in a very large and successful supermarket business, the colleagues at the top of the organisation are not necessarily thinking in that way.
“So, whilst we have huge respect for what’s been done with business so far, we think we’ll have some opportunity to be agile, to really put the heels of impact in a way that our customers will enjoy.”
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