Chinese e-commerce monster JD.com is reprtedly eyeing an up to £2 billion takeover of Liverpool-based online retailer The Very Group as it looks to strengthen its foothold in the UK market.
The move follows JD.com’s previous failed takeover attempt of UK electricals retailer Currys, as well as an attempt to acquire Argos from Sainsbury’s.
In January, Sky News reported that private equity firm The Carlyle Group, which acquired control of The Very Group in late 2025, ending the Barclay family’s long-standing involvement in the business, was planning a £2 billion sale of the company just months after taking control of it.
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Last week, The Very Group published its latest interim results for the 39 weeks ending 28 March 2026, which revealed that retail revenue from its flagship brand, Very, grew 0.1% year-on-year to £1 billion.
The retailer’s sports offering saw particularly healthy growth at 7.5%, although its overall fashion segment declined 4.5% in a “tough market.”
Its toys and beauty category, which the group described as strategically important, continued to “perform well”, delivering 3% year-on-year growth, with a 4.3% increase in fragrance sales.
Overall, the group, which also includes The Very Group’s financial services offering, recorded a 0.3% increase in revenue to £1.6 billion, a performance it described as resilient despite “ongoing challenges in the market.”
Group retail sales, including revenue from its Littlewoods and Very Ireland brands, declined 1.6% to £1.2 billion.
The Very Group is a major UK digital etailer and financial services provider that can trace its roots back to the 1923 founding of Littlewoods pools. It evolved into a massive mail-order catalog business before rebranding and shifting entirely to e-commerce and integrated buy-now-pay-later credit. The group in its current iteration was formed in 2005 through the merger of Littlewoods and Shop Direct,and it rebranded from Shop Direct to The Very Group, with its distinctive pink branding, in 2020.
JD.com doesn’t quite have Very’s history – it was founded as a physical electronics stall in Beijing in 1998, and was only forced to pivot online by the breakout of the SARS epidemic in 2003. That hasn’t stopped it growing into China’s largest retailer by revenue ($187.2bn in 2025, and an improving $45.8bn for Q1 2026) and a Fortune Global 500 technology-driven e-commerce company, however.
