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The Walgreens Boots Alliance has reached a deal worth up to $ 23.7 billion with the private group of Sycamore Partners that will bring the end of the century of the pharmacy chain as a public company.
Sycamore agreed to pay $ 11.45 a share to take private Walgreens, estimating its shares with a premium nearly 30 percent for the agreement talks were first reported in December and giving it a $ 10BN value, the pharmacy chain on Thursday.
Sycamore is likely to maintain the retail business in the US and sell or rotate the remainder, which includes the UK Pharmacy Chain boots as part of a three -way division, the Financial Times reported before.
Walgreens shareholders’ can be paid an additional $ 3 share based on the sale of Walgreens Villagem’s primary care business, evaluating the business including debt in as many $ 23.7 billion.
As part of the agreement, Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina, the executive leader of Walgreens and the largest shareholder, will hold a significant shareholder of business minorities.
The Take-Private transaction will end Walgreens’ 97-year-old running as a listed company. As part of the deal, Walgreens will have 35 days to seek and entertain rival offers.
Pesina falsified the Walgreens Boots Alliance by orchestrating a US -based Walgreens union with Boots Alliance of Europe in 2014. Formerly chief executive group combined from 2015 to 2021, it holds a 17 percent of the shares in the company.
The company owns thousands of stores, including Walgreens and Duane Reade Pharmacies in the SH.BA revenue reached $ 148 billion in its last fiscal year.
Walgreens market value culminated in more than $ 100bN shortly after the closure of the 2014 union. But it was reduced to less than $ 10 billion in the next decade after the company spent billions of pharmacies like E -Commerce ate in general goods and pharmacy managers were reimbursing recipe.
Walgreens at the end of 2019 rejected an offer of service from the KKR private capital group that values the business with more than $ 70BN.
The company expanded to healthcare, spending $ 5.2 billion in 2021 to take a controlling share in the Villagem network of primary care doctors. Villagemd then paid $ 8.9bn for Summit Health-City MD, a group of urgent care and doctors of the US. Walgreens has tried to upload Villagemd for more than a year.
Tim Wentworth, the Walgreens chief executive, said the company’s “ambitious turning plans” would be easier to execute as a private company.
“Sycamore will provide us with the expertise and experience of a partner with a strong record of successful retail curves,” he added.
The company said it would hold its long headquarters in the Agoikago region.
Walgreens’ purchase represents a big bet for Sycamore, which has about $ 10 billion in management asset. The Marquee and Sycamore agreement so far was its $ 7 billion -billion -retail supply supply, which was also losing business for EE -Commerce rivals.
Sycamore has provided more than $ 10 billion in debt financing from banks and private loan lenders, including Ares Management, HPS Investment Partners, JPMORGAN Chase and Goldman Sachs.
Lenders are committed to funding the three individual units in particular in a complex transaction, with those lending to the troubled Walgreens business that require the company to provide its debt to the value of inventories, including recipes, said a person acquainted with the matter.
