South Africa’s SPAR Group (JSE: SPP) has concluded the sale of its United Kingdom business, Appleby Westward Group (AWG), to family-owned wholesaler AF Blakemore and Son for £7 million, drawing a formal close to a chapter of international expansion that ultimately proved costly and unsustainable for the Durban-headquartered retailer.
The agreement sees AF Blakemore acquire 71 company-operated stores, the distribution and logistics operations at Saltash in Plymouth, and the supply arrangement for over 130 independent SPAR partner stores across the south-west of England.  A further 63 AWG stores are in the process of being disposed of to third-party operators, with those transactions at an advanced stage and expected to conclude by September 2026.
Completion of the transaction is subject to customary conditions, including lease assignments, and is expected to occur in stages between June and September 2026. Once the process is finalised, AF Blakemore will support more than 1,000 SPAR stores across the United Kingdom, consolidating its position as the largest SPAR operator in the country.
The disposal brings to a close a twelve-year British chapter for SPAR Group. The company entered the UK market in 2014 through the acquisition of a majority stake in BWG Group, which held Appleby Westward Group as part of its portfolio, before taking full ownership in 2021. It was in June 2025 that SPAR Group formally announced its intention to offload the UK business, following a strategic review of its European operations.
The decision to exit the United Kingdom was not taken in isolation. It forms part of a sustained and deliberate reconfiguration of SPAR Group’s international footprint, one that has seen the company withdraw from several markets in which it accumulated significant losses. SPAR’s net debt was reduced by 40 per cent to R5.4 billion from R9.1 billion in 2024, a reduction attributed primarily to the strategic disposals of its Swiss and Polish operations alongside improved working capital management. Despite this improvement to the balance sheet, the group reported a comprehensive loss of R5 billion for the 2025 financial year, with shareholders continuing to await the resumption of dividends.
The Polish disposal was particularly expensive. SPAR’s exit from Poland cost the group approximately R4 billion to complete, whilst the departure from Switzerland required a cash payment of R683 million. By contrast, the group indicated it did not anticipate needing to make a cash injection to effect the UK disposal, with the proposed structure designed to facilitate an orderly transition whilst limiting ongoing financial exposure.
Alongside the portfolio restructuring, SPAR Group has undergone significant leadership change. Former Woolworths Finance Director Reeza Isaacs took over as Group Chief Executive Officer in March 2026, having joined SPAR as Group CFO in January 2025.  Since joining, Isaacs introduced a structured capital allocation framework and tightened financial controls, contributing to the 40 per cent reduction in net debt.  His predecessor, Angelo Swartz, had led the group through the bulk of its international restructuring before stepping down at the end of February 2026 after 19 years with the company.
SPAR’s board stated that the group’s strategy remains unchanged: to strengthen the Southern Africa business, improve margins, deleverage the balance sheet and simplify the portfolio. The company retains its Irish interests and will not be withdrawing entirely from European-linked markets, but the emphasis is firmly on its home continent.
The broader significance of this repositioning extends beyond corporate accounting. SPAR Group is one of Southern Africa’s most recognisable retail and wholesale networks, operating across grocery, liquor and distribution channels in South Africa and neighbouring markets. Its decision to redirect capital and management focus towards the continent reflects a wider pattern observable across several South African multinationals that expanded aggressively into Europe and emerging markets during the 2010s, only to find that distance, structural complexity and currency exposure eroded returns in ways that proximity to home markets does not.
For the workers and retailers affected by the AWG transition, AF Blakemore, a family business with over a century of trading history, has committed to long-term investment in the SPAR brand and independent retailers in the region, welcoming the majority of AWG’s retail and logistics colleagues into its operations.
The transaction signals not an African retreat but a recalibration; a recognition that the most durable commercial foundations are often those built closest to home.
