Sycamore nears $9B sale of Boots to Canada's Weston family, WSJ reports

Sycamore Partners is nearing a deal to sell Boots, the British pharmacy chain, for close to $9 billion including debt to the Canadian arm of the Weston family, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday -- a little over a year after the private-equity firm took Boots' parent Walgreens private and began breaking it up for sale.

The deal, as reported

The terms, as the Journal reported them: Sycamore has been discussing a sale of Boots to the Weston family's Canadian contingent, which controls Loblaw -- Canada's largest food retailer -- and Shoppers Drug Mart, one of the country's biggest pharmacy chains, through its Wittington Investments vehicle. A deal could be completed in the coming weeks, 'assuming talks don't fall apart,' the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The Financial Times, reporting in parallel, put the timing even tighter: a deal could be reached as soon as next week.

The price -- 'close to $9 billion including debt,' or roughly 7 billion pounds -- is an enterprise value, with the debt-equity split undisclosed. What is being sold is The Boots Group: Boots' UK and Ireland operations, Boots Opticians, the No7 Beauty Company, and pharmacy businesses in Thailand, Mexico, Germany and China. Reuters, carrying the Journal's reporting, confirmed that both Sycamore and Boots declined to comment.

Why Sycamore is selling

For Sycamore, a sale would be the plan working as designed. The New York firm, which oversees about $14 billion largely in retail -- its holdings include Staples and the KnitWell Group behind Talbots and Ann Taylor -- completed its take-private of Walgreens Boots Alliance on August 28, 2025, in a deal valued at up to $23.7 billion including debt, or roughly $10 billion of equity. It then split the group into five standalone companies -- Walgreens, The Boots Group, Shields Health Solutions, CareCentrix and VillageMD -- explicitly to make non-core units easier to sell.

Walgreens was, as the Journal put it, 'in the midst of a turnaround effort' when Sycamore bought it: its market value had dropped more than 90 percent from a roughly $100 billion peak in 2015. Selling Boots at the price being discussed would be, in the Journal's words, 'an early win for Sycamore, which is poised to make a sizable return on the sale' -- and it would let the firm concentrate on reviving the US business, a roughly 8,000-store chain across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

Why the Westons want Boots

For the Westons, Boots would be a homecoming with scale. The family traces its roots to a Toronto bakery founded in 1882; its Canadian arm already runs one of North America's great pharmacy-retail combinations in Loblaw and Shoppers Drug Mart. Buying Boots -- about 1,800 UK stores, 7.5 billion pounds of annual revenue, and a brand that is practically a British institution -- would give that playbook a transatlantic second act. The family knows how to exit, too: it sold Selfridges for 4 billion pounds in 2022.

The business they would be buying is in decent shape. Boots UK grew revenue 3.2 percent to 7.5 billion pounds in the year to August 2025, with like-for-like store sales up 5.8 percent, pre-tax profit up 25 percent to 337 million pounds, and online revenue up 18.3 percent, according to Companies House filings cited by UK trade press. That is the kind of steady, cash-generative asset private-equity sellers dream of auctioning -- and strategic buyers dream of holding.

The bumpy road here

The road here has not been smooth, which is why 'nearing' deserves its caveat. Talks began before Easter at around $10 billion, with Australian pharmacy giant Sigma Healthcare as a rival bidder; Sigma withdrew in June, the Westons lowered their offer, Sycamore rejected it, and by August the process had stalled -- described at the time as a coin flip. A 2027 London listing was the visible plan B: Sycamore hired former Currys chief Alex Baldock as Boots CEO in May, an appointment widely seen as IPO groundwork.

The August stall is the reason to treat 'coming weeks' carefully. These same parties have been here before, and the price has already slipped about $1 billion from the spring. Until signatures are on paper -- and neither side will even confirm the talks -- this remains an advanced negotiation, not a done deal.

What is still unknown

What is not established: the exact debt-equity split inside the $9 billion; whether regulators or the UK government have any view (none has commented); and whether the deal actually closes. Both Sycamore and Boots declined to comment, no filings reference the transaction, and the Weston vehicle Wittington Investments has said nothing publicly.

Watch for: an announcement from either side confirming terms; any UK Competition and Markets Authority interest given Boots' scale on the high street; and what Sycamore does with the proceeds -- whether they fund the Walgreens turnaround or return capital to investors. If talks collapse again, the 2027 IPO plan is presumably back on the table.