John Colley, Associate Dean of Warwick Business School and former MD of a FTSE 100 company, said:

"It usually requires 3 to 4 years to find out how successful a major acquisition has been.

"Under cover of Covid lockdown announcements Sainsbury's are admitting that the 2016 £1.4 Bn Argos acquisition was a mistake.

"The closure of a further 420 out of 900 in 2019 Argos stores says it all. Sainsbury's management clearly did not know how to run Argos and the plan to transplant into spare store space has not worked.

"There was always a concern that Argos and Sainsbury's appealed to very different customer segments with little overlap. That seems now to be true.

"At best unrelated acquisitions such as this are a distraction.

Sainsbury's ex CEO Mike Coupe struggled with his acquisition policies.

The attempt to buy Asda also backfired.

"Argos operates in a highly competitive online market space and the stores are rapidly turning into a liability. Sainsbury's have little choice but to take the costs of closing them."