On February, Steinhoff, the South African furniture retailer rivaled Sainsbury’s bid to buy British firm Home Retail.

Steinhoff, which owns, among others, the Confarama chain in France, made an offer worth 175p a share in cash to buy Home Retail, the owner of Argos in U.K.

Home Retail said it is evaluating the offer and told its shareholders to refrain from taking any decision. On February 22, the British Group however announced that U.K’s authority for merger-purchase told Sainsbury’s and Steinfoff to submit their final offers latest by March 18.

Home Retail said at the beginning of February it accepted Sainsbury’s offer of 161.3p a share, totaling €1.68 billion.

Steinhoff is active in U.K with its brands, Bensons Beds and Harvey’s. Asides U.K, the Frankfurt-listed South African group is also present in South Africa, Germany, France, Netherlands and Italy.