Sainsubury's to appoint its CFO as boss of Home Retail after takeover completes

J Sainsbury announced on Friday it will appoint its chief financial officer John Rogers as chief executive of Home Retail Group on completion of its £1.4bn takeover.

Rogers will replace John Walden, who is stepping down from Home Retail as chief executive.

Sainsbury's said that Rogers will be responsible for combining the group's non-food business with Home Retail's Argos chain and for the delivery of the digital transformation of the business. Rogers has been CFO of Sainsbury since 2010.

Ed Barker, Sainsbury's group finance director, will be appointed CFO of the supermarket on an interim basis.

The takeover deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter. However, last month the Competition and Markets Authority said it would examine the deal to see if it would lead to "a substantial lessening of competition" for consumers.

Home Retail on Thursday reported first quarter sales at Argos grew by 2.6% to £868m, with net new space contributing 2.5%, mainly as a result of store openings in the previous financial year. Like-for-like sales at Argos grew by 0.1%, although the company said the “cannibalisation impact from the new space added in the previous financial year was around 1% and therefore Argos' underlying like-for-like sales increased by approximately 1%”.