US owners of Boots to be taken over by private equity firm

The US owners of Boots have agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners as the struggling retailer looks to turn itself around after years of losing money.

Walgreens Boots Alliance said on Thursday that Sycamore will pay 11.45 dollars (£8.89) per share, giving the deal an equity value just under 10 billion dollars (£7.76bn).

Shareholders could eventually receive up to another 3 dollars (£2.33) per share under certain conditions.

A buyout to take the chain private would give it more flexibility to make changes to improve its business without worrying about Wall Street’s reaction.

The company has already been making big changes as it seeks to turn around the business. Walgreens has been a public company since 1927.

Walgreens, founded in 1901, has been dealing with rising costs in the US, persistent theft and inflation-sensitive shoppers who are looking for bargains elsewhere.

Walgreens is in the early stages of a plan to close 1,200 of its roughly 8,500 US locations.

The Illinois company had already shed about a thousand US stores since it grew to nearly 9,500 after buying some Rite Aid locations in 2018.

The company said last August that it was reviewing a US healthcare operation it had expanded aggressively, and it might sell all or part of its VillageMD clinic business.

That announcement came less than two years after the company said it would spend billions to expand it.

Shares of Walgreens shed nearly two thirds of their value last year.

Walgreens said the transaction price represents a nearly 30% premium to the share price in December when reports of a deal first surfaced.

Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth confirmed in January that a sale process for the business was under way. Including debt, the value of the deal is just under 24 billion dollars, the company said.

Walgreens said earlier this year it was making progress improving prescription reimbursement.

Walgreens has also taken steps to preserve cash. It said in January that it was suspending a quarterly dividend it has offered for more than 90 years, and it has been reducing its stake in the drug distributor Cencora this year to get cash in part to pay down debt.

Ultimately, the company has to improve its cash flow, whether it remains publicly traded or goes private, Leerink Partners analyst Michael Cherny said in a February 23 research note.

“Management has not been shy about its push to improve the cash flow generation profile as part of the turnaround plan,” the analyst wrote. “Without cash flow, none of the value cases work.”

Walgreens Boots Alliance also runs nearly 3,700 international stores, with locations in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Thailand and Ireland.