Sainsbury’s sells Homebase to Schroder

LONDON (Brand Republic) - Supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has sold its Homebase DIY business in a deal worth £969m.

The company’s existing Homebase stores will go to venture capitalist Schroder Ventures for £750m, and the remaining sites, which were built for Homebase stores but are currently not trading, will go to retail group Kingfisher for £219m. Sainsbury’s will also keep an 18% stake in Homebase, worth £31m.

Homebase’s new owner Schroder said that it did not plan to make any redundancies, but managing director Kate Swann has resigned to join catalogue retailer Argos.

Sainsbury’s has been looking for a buyer for Homebase since August. Chief executive Sir Peter Davis said that the price was in line with expectations, and that the company would now focus on its core supermarket business.

Sainsbury’s supermarket business was also in the spotlight today, after rival Asda claimed that it has overtaken Sainsbury’s to become the UK’s second-biggest grocer after Tesco.

Based on the volume of groceries sold, Asda now has 15.4% market share, compared with Sainsbury’s 15%, the retailer said.

However, in a BBC Online report, Sainsbury’s reacted to the claim by saying that Asda’s method of calculation was misleading and that Sainsbury’s was still number two according to “accepted methods of calculating market share”. Sainsbury’s still has more market share calculated by value of sales rather than volume.

This article was first published on brandrepublic.com