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US buyout firm Apollo Global Management and Reliance Industries have joined forces to plan a joint bid for UK pharmacy chain Boots, according to the Financial Times.
Reliance is owned by India’s second-richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and if the bid is successful, Boots will expand its footprint into India, south-east Asia and the Middle East.
The Financial Times said that Apollo and Reliance would both own equity stakes in Boots under the plan, although it is not clear whether their stakes would be the same size.
Reliance is India’s largest listed company by market capitalisation and Ambani is the world’s seventh wealthiest man, according to Forbes.
Boots’ US parent Walgreens Boots Alliance put the business up for sale last December to focus on healthcare in its domestic market.
A source told the Financial Times that the company has set a deadline of May 16 for bids. Currently, Boots has more than 2,000 stores in the UK, many of which receive approximately 45% of its roughly £6bn in annual revenues from providing services such as prescriptions and vaccinations to the country’s state-run health service.
