Alliance Boots bid raised; other companies showing interest
Alliance Boots has opened its books to inspection by private equity group KKR and Stefano Pessina after the group increased its informal offer to £10.2bn (£10.40 per share) from £9.7bn. Despite this, there has still been no formal takeover offer.
As well as KKR and Mr Pessina — who is Alliance Boots’s deputy
chairman — German company Celesio is now believed to be interested
in buying Alliance Boots. Celesio, the parent company of Lloydspharmacy,
is rumoured to be trying to find a private equity group that might be
interested in buying Alliance Boots with a view to selling to Celesio
the stores that made up the former Alliance Pharmacy chain.
A Celesio spokesman refused to confirm whether or not Celesio had any
interest in putting together a rival private equity counter bid, or any
other form of bid, with a view to subsequent acquisition of the Alliance
Pharmacy part of Alliance Boots or any other section of the business.
He declined to confirm a report in the Financial Times that
Celesio had engaged NM Rothschild in this regard. However, he added that
Celesio
was always interested in opportunities to grow its pharmacy and wholesale
business.
Alliance Boots announced last week that its community pharmacy
stores, currently branded as Alliance Pharmacy are to be rebranded as
Boots pharmacies
using a
new “your local Boots pharmacy” format at a cost of £65m. Rebranding
will start in the summer and is expected to take two years to complete. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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