The private equity firm surrounding Boots the Chemist’s parent company is assembling funding from a syndicate of banks for a possible buyout deal worth more than $10 billion.
Sky News has learned that Sycamore Partners is arranging debt financing for a deal to buy Walgreens Boots Alliance, with Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo among those involved in the deal.
If completed, a takeover would see Sycamore take away one of the largest providers of retail pharmaceutical services in the United States and Britain.
That would almost certainly pave the way for a resale of Boots, which employs more than 50,000 people in Britain and operates in around 1,900 stores.
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Earlier this week, Sky News reported that Stefano Pessina, the lead dealmaker who led a series of major deals involving Boots over the past two decades, could become a majority shareholder in one of Britain’s biggest retailers.
Sycamore is expected to sell both Boots and VillageMD, the doctor-staffed clinic chain, according to an industry source.
Walgreens was already considering options regarding its stake in VillageMD.
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The Wall Street Journal revealed Tuesday that Sycamore Partners was in talks to buy WBA, whose market value fell to less than $8 billion in recent months before rebounding when negotiations were announced.
Mr. Pessina, who has a roughly 17% stake in WBA, could become the main owner of Boots depending on how the Sycamore deal is structured.
WBA orchestrated and terminated at least two processes to explore a sale of Boots in recent years, deciding that offers from parties including Apollo Global Management did not provide sufficient value.
Boots recently appointed a new boss after its long-serving chief executive Seb James resigned for a new role in the healthcare sector.
The company’s heritage dates back to John Boot’s opening of a herbal store in Nottingham in 1849.
It opened its 1,000th store in the United Kingdom in 1933.
Sycamore declined to comment.