J Sainsbury's press releases up to the last one on 30 October 2026 (a store opening in Burnham-on-Crouch) announce no closure of Argos stores, and 31 October was a Saturday with no market news, so no closure was announced by the deadline.
The market resolves on any RNS from J Sainsbury plc or the buyers on londonstockexchange.com announcing closure of standalone Argos stores by 23:59 GMT on 31 October 2026. If the London Stock Exchange news viewer is unavailable to automated retrieval, the same RNS republished on investegate.co.uk or in Sainsbury's regulatory-news archive at about.sainsburys.co.uk is the canonical record. If that source has not published in time, The Grocer and BBC News settle it.
We looked for large UK shop chains sold since 2018 for a small part of what they were once worth. We found four, and each had fewer stores within 18 months. How much each shrank depended on the kind of sale. Chains sold out of administration, after the business had failed, kept only the brand. Chains sold while still trading kept going with fewer shops.