Reliance Industries Plan Bid For UK Retail Major Boots: Report

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is considering a joint bid with US buyout firm Apollo Global Management for Britain's well-known retailer Boots, according to a UK media report on Thursday.

According to ‘The Financial Times’, the American private equity firm is working with one of India’s richest businessmen on a bid for the Nottingham-headquartered health and beauty retail chain. If successful, it is expected to result in Boots' expansion into India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

The newspaper said people familiar with the matter said Reliance and Apollo Global would own equity stakes in Boots under the plan, but it is not clear whether their stakes would be the same size.

So far, Apollo declined to comment and Reliance Industries is yet to respond on the queries.

Boots’ US parent company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, put the business up for sale in December last year to focus on healthcare in its domestic market. It has set a deadline of May 16 for bids, one of the people told the newspaper.

Boots, a popular pharmacy chain in the UK, has more than 2,000 stores across the country and reportedly gets about 45 per cent of its estimated GBP 6 billion in annual revenues from providing services such as prescriptions and vaccinations to the UK’s state-run National Health Service (NHS). 

Ambani's other major UK acquisition in recent years was in 2019, when he bought the famous toy retailer Hamleys for an undisclosed sum.