Health and beauty giant Boots is “well positioned for the future”, its bosses maintained as a new ownership structure takes effect.
Following the acquisition of Boots’ former owner Walgreens Boots Alliance by Sycamore Partners, the UK-based business – The Boots Group – is now a standalone business owned by longstanding investor tycoon Stefano Pessina and his family alongside Sycamore.
Pessina and his family – including Boots Group chief executive Ornella Barra – have reinvested all of their WBA interests into Boots, which wholesales pharmaceuticals as well as operating the Boots UK and Ireland retail business which is run by managing director Anthony Hemmerdinger.
The Boots Group said in a statement: “As a private standalone company, The Boots Group will remain well positioned for the future, continue to deliver the very best in retail and healthcare, and execute against its successful transformation strategy to drive long-term growth.”
Barra said: “I am hugely proud of the business that we have created and excited about this new step under new ownership. I would like to thank our colleagues across the world that have built this incredible company, and I am honoured to be leading these businesses on the next stage of our journey. Sycamore’s retail experience and our strong foundation position The Boots Group to deliver against our strategy of being a leader in our markets and the communities we serve.”
Pessina said, “The Boots Group enters this next chapter with strength and momentum. Our family has supported the company over many years, and we are proud to do so now in partnership with Sycamore. As an investor group, we are committed to investing in The Boots Group in order to accelerate its already very successful record of growth.”
Sycamore managing director Stefan Kaluzny said: “The Boots Group is a remarkable institution with deep roots in its communities around the world. We are excited that, as a healthy, successful standalone company with 17 consecutive quarters of like-for-like growth, The Boots Group will now be free to invest and grow more aggressively into the future.”
The Boots Group will be registered and headquartered in the UK. The business is made up of the former international businesses of Walgreens Boots Alliance including Boots UK and Ireland, Boots Opticians, No7 Beauty Company, retail pharmacies in Thailand international franchise retail operations, and retail investments in China.
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