Boots Sold for £6.7bn as Canadian Billionaires End Years of Ownership Turmoil

Boots has been sold once again, this time to Canada’s billionaire Weston family in a deal worth $8.9bn (£6.7bn), bringing an end to years of churn in ownership for one of Britain’s most recognisable high street names.

Wittington Investments, the holding company behind the Weston family’s business empire, confirmed on Wednesday that it had agreed to buy the 177-year-old retailer from US private equity firm Sycamore Partners and long-time backer Stefano Pessina. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, is being backed in partnership with Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings.

The transaction means Boots has been sold out of the hands of Pessina, who first took the chain private in 2007 with backing from KKR and has remained closely tied to the business through a string of subsequent owners, mergers and a scrapped stock market flotation. “It has been one of the privileges of my and Ornella’s life to have been so closely associated with Boots over the last 20 years,” Pessina said, adding he was “delighted to be passing on a thriving Boots to strong and reliable owners.”

Why Boots was sold and what changes next

Boots was put up for sale after Walgreens, its former US parent, explored offloading the chain back in 2022 at a suggested price of up to £10bn. That process dragged on for years, with interested parties including Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, Apollo Global Management and Asda’s owners TDR Capital all failing to put together a deal. A planned £7bn stock market listing was also dropped in 2024 before Sycamore Partners eventually stepped in.

Under the new agreement, the Westons will take control of Boots’ UK and Irish retail operations, its opticians chain, the No7 Beauty Company and its Thailand and franchise businesses. Pessina and Sycamore will retain ownership of separate interests, including the Farmacias Benavides pharmacy chain in Mexico and Alliance Healthcare Deutschland, a German drug distributor.

Galen Weston, who is expected to become Boots’ new chairman, said the family saw “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.”

A familiar name returns to the British high street

The Weston family is no stranger to UK retail. Their Canadian branch previously owned London’s Selfridges department store from 2003 until its sale for $4bn in 2022, while a separate UK branch of the family holds a majority stake in Primark’s parent company, Associated British Foods. Outside Britain, the family controls Canada’s Loblaws supermarket chain and the Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy network, giving them deep experience in exactly the kind of health-and-beauty retailing that underpins Boots’ business.

Boots traces its roots back to 1849, when John Boot opened a herbalist shop in Nottingham offering affordable alternatives to traditional medicine. It has since grown into a nationwide institution known for its pharmacy counters, health checks, vaccinations and the hugely popular Advantage Card loyalty scheme launched in 1997. Today the chain has around 1,800 stores and employs roughly 50,000 people, though it has closed more than 300 branches in recent years as shopping habits shifted and footfall in town centres declined.

Despite that, Boots has continued to perform solidly. Its most recent annual results showed sales of £7.5bn, up 3.2% on the previous year.

Experts cautiously welcome the deal

Retail analysts say the sale could finally bring some stability after a turbulent period of changing hands. Richard Hyman, a veteran retail analyst, described the Weston family as “the most encouraging ownership of Boots for many, many years,” adding: “For years, watching Boots has been a bit like watching corporate pass the parcel. Its ownership has changed with extraordinary frequency and each owner has stripped a bit more out of it.”

Catherine Shuttleworth, chief executive of Savvy Marketing, said shoppers were unlikely to notice immediate changes in stores but could expect “an improved shopping experience as the new owners invest in the business” over time. She pointed to health and beauty as “a massive area for growth” for the chain, while Hyman suggested Boots had scope to expand services through its sprawling store network and make greater use of its loyalty scheme data.

With the deal now agreed, attention turns to how the Westons will reshape a business that has effectively been sold five times over the past two decades. For now, customers can expect business as usual — but with a new owner finally promising the long-term stability that Boots has lacked for years.

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