A consortium of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) and US-based Apollo Global Management, which collaborated to bid for Boots, an international chemist and drugstore unit of Walsgreen Boots Alliance Inc, has made a binding offer to acquire the pharmacy chain, according to news reports.
People with direct knowledge of the matter said that the bid for the Boots business is fully backed by committed financing. A winning bidder could be picked as soon as the coming weeks, the people said. Walgreens plans to keep a stake in the business after any deal, according to the people.
Representatives for the consortium and Walgreens declined to comment.
Currently, the drugstore chain is owned by American retail giant Walgreens Boots Alliance and has a presence in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Walsgreen had put up the business for sale in December last year and has been seeking a valuation of about 7 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) for Boots, though bidders had pegged its worth around 5 billion pounds.
Boots has a sprawling network of more than 2,200 stores across the UK, many of which need sprucing up. The high street has been hit by slowing demand in recent years, and they’ll need to refocus Boots’ business to adapt to these changing consumer habits.
According to other media reports, a consortium, backed by billionaire businessmen Issa brothers, may drop out of the race for Boots over price disagreements. The consortium balked at a request by Walgreens to increase their offer for the Boots drugstore chain.
The Issa-TDR group was jointly bidding for Boots through Asda Group Ltd, the British grocery chain they own.