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Potential new owners of Boots are set to meet with the high street chemist chain’s management this week to discuss its £7bn upcoming sale, according to The Times.
American private equity firms Apollo and Sycamore Partners are among the firms to have submitted non-binding bids for the Walgreens-owned group.
They are reportedly in competition with TDR Capital and the Issa brothers, whose portfolio includes Asda.
Prospective bidders for the business were previously given until the end of February to submit their first-round bids. A consortium of Bain Capital and CVC Capital reportedly declined to submit bids at this stage, however, despite being early frontrunners as a potential new owner.
Reports first emerged that Walgreens Boots Alliance had started the sales process for its Boots international drugstore unit in January of this year.
At the time, Walgreens was said to be “sending out preliminary information on the business to potential suitors ahead of first-round bids due in the coming weeks”.
Boots, which has 2,200 stores in Britain and employs around 55,000 people, is expected to be valued at as much as £7bn in the auction.
