{"id":41665,"date":"2026-06-11T00:22:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T04:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/06\/11\/boots-in-talks-with-australian-rival-and-weston-family\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T00:22:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T04:22:40","slug":"boots-in-talks-with-australian-rival-and-weston-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/06\/11\/boots-in-talks-with-australian-rival-and-weston-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Boots in talks with Australian rival and Weston family"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Pharmacy and beauty chain Boots is in talks with an Australian rival and the billionaire Weston family over a potential \u00a37.5 billion sale.<\/p>\n

Australian pharmacy group Sigma Healthcare confirmed today that it has held “preliminary discussions” over a takeover.<\/p>\n

The company stressed to shareholders that there is “no certainty” any transaction will take place.<\/p>\n

It followed a report by the Financial Times that the UK-based pharmacy and beauty chain could opt for a $10 billion (\u00a37.5 billion) sale over a potential stock market listing.<\/p>\n

It said Boots had also held talks with the Canadian branch of the billionaire Weston family, which owns the majority of grocery chain Loblaws.<\/p>\n

The Weston family’s British side is the majority owner of Primark through its parent firm Associated British Foods, which also owns grocery brands including Twinings and Ryvita.<\/p>\n

It is understood that talks with both potential suitors are at an early stage.<\/p>\n

The potential sale comes only a year after Boots was snapped up by private equity firm Sycamore Partners after the US investment giant acquired parent firm Walgreens Boots Alliance for $23.7 billion (\u00a317.7 billion).<\/p>\n

In August last year, Sycamore split off Boots from the US operations.<\/p>\n

The new UK-based Boots business included Boots UK and Ireland, Boots opticians, No7 Beauty company and pharmacies in Thailand, Mexico and Germany.<\/p>\n

It is understood that Sycamore is still considering a potential initial public offering (IPO) for Boots on the London stock market.<\/p>\n

However, a private sale would deal a fresh blow to the London Stock Exchange amid a dearth of new major listings in recent years.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pharmacy and beauty chain Boots is in talks with an Australian rival and the billionaire Weston family over a potential \u00a37.5 billion sale. Australian pharmacy group Sigma Healthcare confirmed today that it has held “preliminary discussions” over a takeover. The company stressed to shareholders that there is “no certainty” any transaction will take place. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}