Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts has confirmed the supermarket giant is “not currently in any discussions” to sell the Argos business, following its decision to end talks with JD.com.
In September, Sainsbury’s plans to sell Argos to Beijing-based retailer JD.com collapsed less than 24 hours after the late-stage talks were revealed.
The grocer said it terminated discussions after JD.com was only “prepared to engage on a materially revised set of terms and commitments”.
Speaking of the former discussions today (6 November), Roberts explained: “If a party comes to us and wants to talk to us strategically about part of our business, of course we have a responsibility to do that.
“In this case, we had a discussion over a series of months, and then when the terms of that discussion significantly changed, it was in the best interests of all of our stakeholders and our shareholders to walk away from that.”
It comes as Sainsbury’s raised its annual profit guidance to more than £1bn today after it maintained sales momentum in the first half of the year.
At Argos, sales grew by 2.3% over the period. Roberts said Sainsbury’s was now “focused on delivering and driving the strongest and most successful future for Argos”.
“We’re starting to see an upward trajectory here and we’re very focused on how we now drive that forward,” he added.
Meanwhile, for the 28 weeks to 13 September 2025, Sainsbury’s total sales – excluding fuel – were up 5.2% to £15.6bn driven by grocery volume growth ahead of the market for a fifth consecutive year, the supermarket said.
Roberts claimed the grocer’s prices have “never been stronger compared to our competitors”.
“In fact, Sainsbury’s improved price position against every one of our competitors in the half.”
He noted that Sainsbury’s achieved this by extending its Aldi Price Match and adding 10,000 products to its Nectar Prices loyalty scheme.
“We’ve made a series of investments for this Christmas to make sure our value, our offering, our availability and our operations are the best we can possibly deliver. Whilst customers are very concerned about making sure they can get everything they need at a price they can afford, they also want to celebrate without compromise,” Roberts explained.
“Sixty-five per cent of our customers are both trading into the Aldi Price Match and also trading up into premium when they shop with us, and I think that just shows the confidence customers have to do all of their shop with us.”
In the first half of the year, fresh sales in Sainsbury’s premium Taste the Difference range grew 18%. For Christmas, the grocer has launched 600 new lines, 300 of which are in the Taste the Difference range.
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