New details of Alliance Boots private equity scheme revealed to shareholders
Further details of the planned scheme to take Alliance Boots into private ownership were laid out in a circular last week.
The proposed date for the acquisition by AB Acquisitions is 26 June,
with Alliance Boots shares being delisted on 28 June. AB Acquisitions
is jointly controlled by Stefano Pessina, executive deputy chairman of
Alliance Boots, and the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
The circular, sent out to all Alliance Boots shareholders, also revealed
that, should the scheme become effective and all options be exercised
in full, Mr Pessina will receive £820,539, Richard Baker, chief
executive, will receive £6,543,379 and Steve Duncan, community
pharmacy director, will receive £530,938.
In an introductory letter to the circular Sir Nigel Rudd, chairman of
Alliance Boots, says that KKR and Mr Pessina insist that long-term growth
of Alliance Boots can be best achieved under private ownership.
“KKR and Stefano Pessina believe that the rapid structural changes
in the pharmacy retail and wholesale markets in Europe will require an
acceleration
of Alliance Boots’s transition to a pharmacy-led health and beauty
and services-oriented business,” he says. AB Acquisitions intends,
he adds, “to enhance Alliance Boots’s positioning as a leading
provider of health care and beauty advice and services in the local community,
both by increasing investment in existing stores and by expanding the
store portfolio”.
AB Acquisitions has given assurances that Alliance Boots’s pension
obligations will be fully complied with. However, discussions with the
trustees of each of Alliance Boots’s three pension schemes are
ongoing, Sir Nigel says.
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