The troubled camera retailer Jessops has changed hands after AO World acquired the business from the Dragons’ Den star Peter Jones.
The online electrical retailer said on Thursday it had completed the acquisition of Jessops.
AO bought the entire business, including its remaining seven stores around the UK, for an undisclosed sum. The deal will be funded from AO’s existing cash resources.
The acquisition is part of AO’s wider push to move beyond the categories it is best known for, such as white goods, mobile phones and televisions, and into other types of electricals.
“[It] supports our strategy of expanding into adjacent categories, giving customers and members more reasons to shop with AO and increase our share of wallet,” AO World said.
“Jessops brings a trusted brand and specialist expertise in cameras and optical technology, while its re-commerce business, Camera Jungle, is highly complementary to our existing musicMagpie operations and further strengthens our circular economy credentials.”
Camera Jungle specialises in buying and selling secondhand digital cameras, lenses, and photography accessories. In December 2024, AO bought musicMagpie, which buys and sells used smartphones, tablets, consoles, video games, CDs and DVDs.
The company said it expected Jessops to grow over the next 12 months as it leveraged its own scale, web traffic and operational expertise.
Jessops posted a 6.5% rise in revenues to £19.8m last year, and made a pre-tax loss of £1m, down from £1.17m in 2024, according to its most recently filed accounts at Companies House.
Founded in 1935 by Frank Jessop in Leicester, Jessops has endured a troubled history over the past two decades, and called in administrators three times. Jones’s PJ Investment Group bought the chain out of administration in 2013. Jessops was left with 17 shops in 2021, when it was hit hard by Covid lockdown restrictions.
Jones, who made most of his £400m fortune selling mobile phones, bought the Jessops brand in January 2013 to run it as a purely online retailer, and did not buy its 187 stores. More than 1,370 stuff were made redundant.
Jones later reopened dozens of stores but in 2019 the company plunged into administration a second time, and then again in 2021.
John Roberts, AO’s founder and chief executive, said: “I am delighted to welcome Jessops into the AO family and look forward to growing the existing business as well as integrating the category into the wider AO business.”
Roberts started AO in 2000 after making a £1 bet in a pub with a friend that he could change the way white goods were bought over the internet.
The Guardian has contacted Jones for comment.
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