JD.com is weighing a potential £2bn bid for The Very Group as it continues to push further into European retail.
The business is understood to be considering an offer for the UK online retailer, which operates the Very and Littlewoods brands, ahead of a formal auction process.
Very Group was taken over by US private equity firm Carlyle earlier this year following a financial restructuring that ended the Barclay family’s long-running ownership of the business.
Carlyle, which had been a long-standing creditor to Very, assumed control for a nominal £1 after PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed to manage the insolvency of VGL Holdco in November.
The private equity firm had previously committed several hundred million pounds to Very’s capital structure, including an £85m injection in 2024, after making its first investment in the business in 2021.
Very Group, formerly known as Shop Direct, generates annual revenue of more than £2bn and has 4.4 million customers across fashion, electricals, homewares and toys. It also operates a consumer finance arm.
The business is currently chaired by former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi.
A sale process is expected to attract interest from both trade buyers and financial investors.
JD.com’s reported interest comes as the business faces growing scrutiny in Europe over its separate €2.2bn bid for German electronics retailer Ceconomy, which owns MediaMarkt and Saturn.
Brussels is set to launch an in-depth foreign subsidies investigation into the deal, giving the European Commission an extra 90 working days to examine whether the takeover involves unfair foreign state support.
Ceconomy operates more than 1,000 stores across Europe, making the proposed takeover one of the largest Chinese investments in European retail in recent years.
The investigation would mark the first time a Chinese takeover has been subjected to a detailed probe under the EU’s foreign subsidies rules.
The regulations allow Brussels to block companies backed by foreign government subsidies from public procurement, mergers and acquisitions if they are found to distort competition in the single market.
JD.com launched its Ceconomy bid last July, with the deal originally expected to complete in the first half of 2026. However, Austrian regulators have already raised concerns, while a German decision remains outstanding.
The ecommerce giant has been steadily building its European ambitions. It already operates logistics hubs in the UK, France and Germany, and recently launched its Joybuy online shopping platform in the UK.
It has also previously explored UK retail acquisitions, including a potential bid for Currys, before walking away in March 2024.
The possible Very Group bid would give JD.com a sizeable UK ecommerce platform with an established customer base, a retail credit operation and a broad product mix across core online categories.
However, Very’s fashion business remains under pressure. GlobalData warned last week that the division continued to drag on performance, despite the wider retailer returning to overall revenue growth.
Fashion and sports sales fell 4.5 per cent in the 39 weeks to 28 March 2026, with GlobalData retail analyst Ashley Adeyemi saying the segment continued to “drag the category into negative territory”.
A successful Very deal would mark a significant step in JD.com’s UK expansion, but the regulatory pressure around Ceconomy underlines the tougher environment Chinese retail investors now face in Europe.
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