Weston family agrees £6.7bn purchase of Boots from Sycamore Partners

Boots is set to change hands again after Wittington Investments agreed to buy the pharmacy and retail chain from US private equity firm Sycamore Partners and the Pessina family for $8.9bn, equivalent to about £6.7bn. Completion is expected in early 2027. The purchase covers Boots’ retail operations in the UK and Ireland, Boots Opticians, the No7 Beauty Company and its Thai and franchised businesses.

Wittington will have operational control in partnership with Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Toronto-based holding company. Sycamore and Stefano Pessina’s family will retain ownership of the Boots Group’s Farmacias Benavides business in Mexico and Alliance Healthcare Deutschland in Germany. The deal therefore changes control of the British and Irish retail operation rather than transferring every asset associated with the wider Boots group.

Boots has about 1,800 stores and 51,000 employees after closing hundreds of branches in recent years. The company has faced lower footfall as working patterns changed and more people worked from home, alongside competition and shifting shopping habits. Despite those pressures, its latest annual results showed sales of £7.5bn, up 3.2% on 2024.

The chain began in Nottingham in 1849, when John Boot opened an herbalist shop offering an affordable alternative to traditional medicines. It later expanded into health and beauty products, meal deals and travel accessories. Its services include vaccinations, eye tests and hearing tests, while its Advantage Card loyalty scheme was introduced in 1997.

Galen Weston, chairman of Wittington, will become Boots chairman. He said the new owners saw an opportunity to improve the business through stable ownership, additional capital investment and a renewed focus on operations. The plans include upgrading shops and expanding healthcare services.

Retail expert Catherine Shuttleworth told the BBC that customers were unlikely to see major changes immediately. Over time, however, she expected investment to improve the shopping experience and identified health and beauty as a significant growth area. She also described the frequent changes in ownership over the past two decades as an unhelpful distraction.

The Weston family already owns Canadian grocery and pharmacy businesses, including Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart. It owned Selfridges from 2003 until 2021 and sold the department store for $4bn. A separate UK branch of the family is the majority owner of Associated British Foods, which owns Primark.

The family was ranked fifth on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, with a combined fortune of almost £19bn.