Reliance Industries and Apollo Global Management in £5bn bid for Boots

[helvella]

This is simply for interest. So many of us get medicines from Boots, any change could be important.

Reliance Industries and Apollo Global Management in £5bn bid for Boots

Mukesh Ambani teams up with US private equity fund, with Walgreens expected to retain minority stake

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has teamed up with US private equity fund Apollo Global Management to make a £5bn bid for the UK’s Boots chain.

The pharmacy and beauty retailer’s current owner, US group Walgreens, which has controlled Boots since 2012, is expected to keep a minority stake under the deal.

Walgreens’ ongoing interest comes after concerns about the funding of Boots’ pension fund for which the US group is understood to underwrite guarantees worth billions of pounds.

A buyout led by Reliance Industries is expected to lead to expansion in Asia according to Bloomberg, which first reported the bid.

Rest of article accessible here:

theguardian.com/business/20...

[RedApple]

I wonder what the founder, John Boot, would think about what's happened to his little UK business over recent years.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_...

[helvella in reply to RedApple]

The John Wesley connection seems bizarre from where we have now reached.

And to think, at one point, Boots owned Synthroid. Which had its own involved and complex story:

Published: 21 August 1997

$100m payout after drug data withheld

Meredith Wadman

nature.com/articles/41836

As I have said innumerable times, Synthroid is just a particular brand (formulation) of levothyroxine. With the various positives and negatives that each brand has.

[RedApple in reply to helvella]

'the anti-hypothyroidism drug Synthroid.'

What an odd description! I suppose it's not actually wrong, just not the way we think of it nowadays. 'Hormone replacement' seems a kinder term

[DippyDame in reply to RedApple]

Goodness....just what I set out to write.

Totally agree.

[humanbean]

I remember reading this article soon after it came out :

theguardian.com/news/2016/a...

There have been rather a lot of controversies surrounding Boots since it was sold by the original owners :

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots...

[helvella in reply to humanbean]

I too remember that article. Thanks for posting it.

Always helps when the collective memory of members brings things together.

[LindaC]

Already American owned - sad this family firm has been long gone? Walgreens had 45% stake then bought the rest!? Since much of industry has long been sold off...