The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) this week (January 27) revealed that the rumoured talks for Boots’ parent company “to sell itself” to private equity firm Sycamore Partners are “unlikely to result in a deal”.
The report comes after CNBC financial journalist David Faber announced that his sources had informed him the rumoured deal between the two companies is “mostly dead”, according to the WSJ.
And the news caused WBA share prices to tumble, dropping as much as 10% on Monday morning, it said.
Read more: Boots remains tight-lipped over ‘fresh auction’ rumours
The WSJ had previously reported last month that WBA was in talks with Sycamore for “a deal that would take the pharmacy chain off the public market”.
Sources at the time had said that the deal “could be completed early next year”.
Sky News also reported at the time that Sycamore’s “$10 billion-plus takeover bid...is set to trigger a fresh auction of Boots”.
Read more: WBA sued for pharmacist pressure to dispense ‘millions of unlawful scripts’
The news outlet said it understood that the private equity firm “is expected to seek separate ownership for Boots if it succeeds in taking WBA…private”.
Sycamore this week (January 28) told C+D that it would not comment on the alleged developments and WBA also declined to comment on “rumours and speculation”.
Trading turmoil
It comes as WBA revealed earlier this month that it made a loss of $265 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2025.
The results show a shocking 296% increase in losses from the year-ago quarter, when losses stood at $67m.
WBA said at the time that the new results were “primarily driven by higher operating loss”.
Read more: Boots parent company losses plunge to $265m in first quarter
And less than a week later, the US government filed a nationwide lawsuit alleging that since 2012, WBA “knowingly filled millions of prescriptions that lacked a legitimate purpose”.
The civil complaint claimed that WBA “dispensed millions of unlawful prescriptions” including “dangerous and excessive quantities of opioids” and “early refills of opioids”.
And it said that “Walgreens systematically pressured its pharmacists to fill prescriptions quickly without taking the time needed to confirm each prescription’s validity”.
