Wittington Investments, the Weston family's holding company, signed for the British pharmacy chain with insurer Fairfax as a partner. CIBC and Morgan Stanley are lead arrangers on the debt, and closing is targeted for early 2027.
A little over a year after taking Walgreens Boots Alliance private, Sycamore Partners has agreed to sell Boots, and the buyer is neither a public market nor another buyout fund.
The Weston family of Canada, through its holding company Wittington Investments, will pay $8.9 billion for Boots. That figure covers both cash and debt the buyer takes on. Sycamore owns most of The Boots Group, with Stefano Pessina and his family as partners, and they signed the definitive agreement on Wednesday. Fairfax Financial Holdings, the Toronto insurance and investment group, is co-investing, while Wittington will run the business once the deal closes. Regulators still have to approve it, and both sides are aiming to finish in the first quarter of 2027.
The carve-out
The sale covers the U.K. and Irish pharmacy stores, the opticians business, the No7 beauty brand and operations in Thailand and franchise markets. Two other holdings stay behind with Sycamore and the Pessinas: the Mexican pharmacy chain Farmacias Benavides and the German drug wholesaler Alliance Healthcare Deutschland.
Sycamore's take-private of the whole Walgreens group, completed in 2025, was valued at about $10 billion excluding debt. Boots has since been operated on its own. "One year ago, we re-established Boots as a standalone company," said Stefan Kaluzny of Sycamore, who credited its more than 50,000 employees.
The lenders
CIBC and Morgan Stanley Senior Funding are lead arrangers and are supplying the acquisition debt. Neither the size of the loans nor their terms has been made public.
Two banks, rather than a private credit fund, are writing the debt for a buyout of this size. The arrangement also places a Canadian lender beside a Canadian family and a Canadian insurer in a British retail deal.
The owners-to-be
Through Wittington, the Westons control George Weston, the parent of Loblaw, and the family presented its background in pharmacy-led retail as a reason to own Boots. Galen Weston spoke of "stable long-term ownership, further capital investment, and the renewed operating focus required to serve customers with excellence for generations to come."
Fairfax, led by Prem Watsa, already holds Canadian retail investments including Sleep Country and The Sporting Life Group. How the equity will be divided between the two partners has not been disclosed.
The headline number
Because the $8.9 billion includes assumed debt, it is neither an equity price nor a stated enterprise value. With the equity value, the debt and the cost Sycamore originally attributed to Boots inside the Walgreens purchase all undisclosed, Sycamore's return cannot be worked out from the announcement.
Two readings
One reading is that Sycamore has shown how a sponsor can pull value out of a complicated take-private by splitting it and selling parts to patient owners, without depending on an IPO window, and that banks remain willing to finance a large retail buyout.
Another reading is that the sale leaves Sycamore and the Pessinas with a German wholesaler and a Mexican pharmacy chain still to monetize, so the outcome of the wider Walgreens investment rests on those businesses.
Approvals
Competition and regulatory reviews in the U.K. and elsewhere, the shape of the financing as it is syndicated, and Sycamore's plans for the businesses it is keeping come next.