Boots owner ‘closing in on sale to Canada’s Weston family for $9bn’

The private equity owner of high street pharmacy Boots is reportedly closing in on a deal to sell the business to the Canadian branch of the billionaire Weston family for $9bn (£7bn).

Sycamore Partners, which bought the wider Walgreens Boots Alliance for $23.7bn in 2025, is said to be in advanced talks with the Westons, with the Financial Times reporting that a deal could be completed as soon as next week.

If successful, it would mark the return of the Canadian branch of the Weston family to the UK high street, having previously owned Selfridges.

The family later sold the department store chain for £4bn in 2022. The Westons are widely known throughout Canada for owning the grocery store Loblaws and the pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart.

The UK branch of the family, which operates its businesses through a separate investment vehicle, are known for holding a majority stake in Primark through the parent company Associated British Foods.

News of the prospective Weston deal comes months after Sycamore tried and failed to sell Boots to the Australian pharmaceutical group Sigma Healthcare in a deal that would have valued the business at $10bn this summer.

Sycamore has been widely expected to spin off and sell Boots – alongside other parts of the group – after its takeover of the Walgreen Boots Alliance last year. It as has already split the group into five stand-alone companies.

Boots, which was founded in Nottingham in 1849 by John Boot, has changed hands several times in the past 20 years. After a merger with Alliance Unichem in 2006, the combined company was taken over by the private equity firm KKR in 2007, before Walgreens first took a 45% stake in 2012 and then completed a takeover at the end of 2014.

Boots – which has 1,800 stores across the UK – employs about 51,000 people, including about 6,000 at its headquarters in Beeston, three miles south-west of Nottingham.

This summer it reported that revenues had risen 3.2% to £7.5bn in the year to the end of August 2025, with pre-tax profit up by 25% to £337m. It said strong demand for weight loss jabs and beauty products had helped increase its profits.