Walgreens lines up Goldman Sachs to explore options for UK’s Boots chain

Walgreens lines up Goldman Sachs to explore options for UK’s Boots chain

Walgreens Boots Alliance is lining up advisers to explore options including the sale of Boots, five years after it took full ownership of the UK retail pharmacy chain.

Goldman Sachs will be asked to examine the hiving off of the Boots chain, which was founded in Nottingham by a Methodist family in 1849, potentially via a sale or separate listing.

Private equity groups have been buyers of UK retail assets this year, with TDR Capital involved in the acquisition of supermarket chain Asda in February and Clayton, Dubilier and Rice fighting off competition from SoftBank-backed Fortress to take control of Wm Morrison, another grocer, in October.

Boots was a UK-listed company until 2007, when it was taken private by Italian pharmacy magnate Stefano Pessina and private equity group KKR, in what was then the UK’s largest leveraged buyout.

Walgreens then acquired the company in two stages, completing the process in 2016, with Pessina becoming chief executive of the enlarged group.

At the start of this year Walgreens appointed Roz Brewer as chief executive, with Pessina becoming executive chair. Brewer has signalled a sharper focus on US healthcare and the group has already sold its distribution business to Amerisource Bergen.

Chicago-based Walgreens said it was “accurate” that