According to a report in the UK media, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is planning a joint bid for Britain’s well-known retail chain Boots with US buyout company Apollo Global Management.
Boots, a major drugstore company in the United Kingdom, has over 2,200 locations and reputedly earns roughly 45 percent of its estimated GBP 6 billion in yearly sales. It’s supplying services are prescriptions and vaccinations to the country’s state-run National Health Service (NHS). The 173-year-old retail chain’s net worth is estimated to be around £6 billion ($7.5 billion).
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Boots’ parent company in the United States, put the company up for sale in December of last year. The move was so that it could focus on healthcare in its home market. The bids must be submitted by May 16th, which is the deadline.
According to ‘The Financial Times,’ an American private equity group is also collaborating on a bid for the Nottingham-based health and beauty store chain Asda’s owners, Mohsin and Zuber Issa, as well as private equity firm TDR Capital, is said to have made an initial proposal for Boots.
Ambani is the largest stakeholder and chairman of Reliance Industries, a retail-to-energy company. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 65-year-old is Asia’s second-richest person, with a net worth of more than $100 billion. The Ambani family already has tens of millions of pounds worth of assets in the United Kingdom.
Ambani’s Reliance Brands Limited purchased the toy shop Hamleys for an unknown sum in 2019. Reliance Industries paid £57 million for the iconic British country club Stoke Park last year. Google and Facebook made some of the largest investments, which helped him integrate his telecoms and online retail sectors.
If Ambani’s plan is successful, Boots is projected to expand into India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. The number of online pharmaceutical merchants in India has recently increased, and this potential partnership would allow Reliance to enter the market quickly.
