Walgreens Boots Alliance in the US has kicked off the sales process for its Boots international retail chemists as fresh buyout firms, including Sycamore Partners, consider bids, according to sources.
The US company is sending out preliminary information on the business to potential suitors ahead of first-round bids due in the coming weeks, the sources said. Boots, which mostly operates pharmacies in Ireland and Britain, could be valued at as much as £7bn (€8.4bn) in a sale, Bloomberg News has reported.
Sycamore, a private equity retail specialist, has joined a small group of other buyout firms exploring bids, the sources said. The business could also attract interest from TDR Capital and the Issa brothers, who bought UK supermarket Asda last year.
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They would be competing with Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners. Advent International and KKR are also studying potential bids, people said at the time. Walgreens is also considering a potential initial public offering of Boots if buyout interest is muted, the sources said.
Boots runs a chain of roughly 2,100 stores in Britain that includes brands such as No7 Beauty Company. It also has smaller operations in Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Thailand, as well as an optician business.
A new owner would be significant news for the pharmacy and beauty retailers across Ireland. In the Republic, Boots operates 89 stores and has about the same number of outlets in the North.
During the first year of the pandemic in 2020, Boots posted a net profit of €20.8m in the Republic, down by 9% from 2019, on revenues of almost €377.6m. Around 13.5% of revenues are generated from selling prescription medicines, and it said in the accounts that although most stores remained open that trading from its beauty counters was curtailed in 2020.
It employs over 1,655 people in the Republic and around the same number of staff in the North. The 2020 accounts show it received €3.4m from the Government’s Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.
Source: Irish Examiner
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