Sainsbury’s remains in talks with Home Retail Group, but is close to taking control of the company after agreeing a price of £1.3bn.
The supermarket has until 5pm today to make a formal offer, but could ask the Takeover Panel to extend the time frame in order for it to complete due diligence. An agreement is thought to have been reach at a price of just over 160p a share, a considerable premium compared with a share price of below 100p prior to Sainsbury’s expressing interest.
If the deal goes ahead, it could mean the closure of up to 245 Argos stores – analysis shows that to be the number of Argos stores that are within half a mile of a Sainsbury’s outlet.
