The UK pharmacy and beauty retailer Boots is set for a major ownership change after the Canadian Weston family agreed to purchase the chain for $8.9 billion (£6.74 billion). The acquisition is led by Wittington Investments, the family holding company that oversees both the Loblaws grocery chain and the Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy brand in Canada.
As part of the deal, the new owners will gain control of the Nottingham-based retailer’s UK and Irish operations, its opticians business, the No7 beauty brand, and a franchise arm located in Thailand. The purchase is being supported by the investment firm Fairfax, which manages several Canadian retail assets, including Sleep Country and The Sporting Life Group. Which has 1,800 stores across the UK and employs 50,000 people, is also being backed by the investment firm Fairfax, which owns The Sporting Life Group and Sleep Country, Canada’s largest mattress retailer, which owns Simba Sleep in the UK, the acquisition of the Nottingham-headquartered chain.
Galen Weston, the chair of Wittington, is expected to step into the role of chair at Boots. Describing the retailer as one of Britain’s most enduring businesses, Weston noted the company’s rich heritage and its vital role in the daily lives of residents across the UK and Ireland. He expressed plans to improve the business through long-term investment and a refined operational strategy. “We see a meaningful opportunity to make a great business even better through stable long-term ownership, further capital investment, and the renewed operating focus required to serve customers with excellence for generations to come.”. Its ownership has changed with extraordinary frequency and each owner has stripped a bit more out of it.”.
The transaction will finalize the exit of long-term backer Stefano Pessina and his recent partner, the investment firm Sycamore Partners. Pessina, who helped take the company private in 2007 with KKR, expressed pride in his 20-year association with the brand, noting his confidence in passing the business to new owners who respect its heritage. He will retain his interests in the Mexican pharmacy chain Farmacias Benavides and the German drug distributor Alliance Healthcare Deutschland.
This deal marks a significant return to the UK high street for the Canadian branch of the Weston family, which sold the Selfridges department store chain for £4 billion in 2022. The family’s separate UK business arm maintains a majority stake in Primark through Associated British Foods.
The sale follows a tumultuous period of ownership for Boots. In 2022, parent company Walgreens initiated a sale process with an expected price of £10 billion, but later retracted the plan after potential buyers like Apollo Global Management and Reliance Industries failed to finalize terms. A secondary attempt to float the company on the stock market was also abandoned in 2024. In 2022, the US pharmacy group Walgreens put Boots up for sale with a suggested price tag of up to £10bn, but it later dropped the plans as potential buyers, including Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, the US private equity investor Apollo Global Management and Asda’s owners TDR Capital, struggled to raise funds.
Retail analyst Richard Hyman described the move as the most promising development for the chain in years, noting that the company has long functioned like a corporate vessel passed between different owners. With Boots having closed more than 300 stores recently, analysts are watching closely to see if the new owners will modernize the retailer’s loyalty programs and store services to better compete with discounters like Lidl and Savers. “It has been one of the privileges of my and [my wife] Ornella’s life to have been so closely associated with Boots over the last 20 years.
The transition is currently subject to regulatory approval and is projected to conclude by the first quarter of 2027.
