Reliance Industries-Apollo Global Bid For Chemist Chain Boots: 10 Points

10 Jun 2022, 01:55 PM IST

Reliance Industries is learnt to have bid for UK-based chemist chain Boots

According to a PTI report, the chemist chain's US parent Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) will retain an unspecified minority stake as part of the deal, people with direct knowledge of the deal, said.
There is no clarity though, on how much stake Reliance and Apollo combine are picking up.
Reliance will add pharmacy and beauty retailing to its burgeoning retail business through the acquisition. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate is likely to expand Boots in India, PTI further reported.
Boots currently has a presence in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Indonesia.
It has over 2,200 stores, most of them old, in the UK that need investment for sprucing up as they struggle to deal with retailing shifting online.
Boots' US parent put the business up for sale last December to focus on healthcare in its domestic market.
Founded by Quaker John Boot in 1849, Boots has been in private hands since 2007 after it teamed up with Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina's Alliance Unichem.
WBA in 2017 sold off the Boots manufacturing business. including its Nottingham factory, to the France-based specialist Fareva.
Sources said private equity groups Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners dropped out in the early part of the bid process.
It was not known if another potential bidder - owners of UK supermarket group Asda, brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private equity group TDR Capital - have made a bid, the PTI report said.