Weston family-linked Wittington buys Boots in GBP £6.7bn

Wittington Investments has agreed to buy Boots in a £6.7 billion deal, returning the pharmacy chain to ownership linked to the Weston family.

The transaction ends Sycamore Partners' brief ownership of Boots and brings the UK retailer under the same holding company that owns Canada's Shoppers Drug Mart. The deal values Boots at USD $8.9 billion including debt.

The sale comes at a time of deep strain in the UK pharmacy market. Research cited by delivery company Parcelhero found the sector lost a net 787 outlets in 2023 and a further 604 in 2024, making it the worst-performing retail segment over those two years.

Against that backdrop, the new owner inherits one of the most recognisable names on the British high street, but one operating in a market reshaped by online prescription services and sustained store closures.

Boots has about 1,800 stores and is now the largest remaining chain in a sector that has undergone sharp consolidation. The collapse of Lloydspharmacy was the clearest sign of that shift. As recently as 2020, Lloydspharmacy had 1,054 branches and was the UK's second-largest pharmacy retailer, but all were sold or closed by the end of 2023. The business, renamed Diamond DCO Two Limited, entered liquidation in 2024 with debts of GBP £293 million.

Parcelhero argues that Boots' importance now lies less in the size of its store network than in its position in a health market that is increasingly moving online. That shift has changed assumptions about pharmacies as a stable part of retail.

"Just ten years ago, pharmacies looked like the safest corner of retail. The sector had a steady 14,389 stores, 49% of them owned by the top 12 operators. The arrival of online prescription services changed that. As '2030: The High Street Fights Back?' reveals, the UK lost a net 787 chemist outlets in 2023, followed by a further 604 in 2024. Both are net figures, so no new shops opened to replace them. It was the worst performance of any retail sector over those two years. The biggest casualty was Lloydspharmacy. As recently as 2020 it was the UK's second-largest pharmacy retailer, with 1,054 branches. All were sold or closed by the end of 2023, and the business, by then renamed Diamond DCO Two Limited, was liquidated in 2024, owing creditors £293m. The Lloydspharmacy name has since reappeared online, bought earlier this year by the Pharmacy2U Group," said David Jinks, Head of Consumer Research at Parcelhero.

Online shift

The migration of prescriptions and repeat health orders to home delivery has become a central pressure on traditional pharmacy models. Businesses that once relied on footfall and local convenience now face competition from online services that can manage repeat dispensing and direct-to-home fulfilment.

The shift is also affecting the wider health and beauty category in which Boots operates. Parcelhero noted that Bodycare, the toiletries, cosmetics and fragrance retailer, entered administration and closed all its stores, underlining broader fragility on the high street.

For Wittington, the purchase offers clear overlap with its Canadian pharmacy interests. Shoppers Drug Mart gives the holding company experience in retail pharmacy, beauty products and customer loyalty schemes, all directly relevant to Boots.

The ownership change follows Sycamore Partners' takeover of Walgreens Boots Alliance, after which Boots was separated into a standalone business. Market observers had widely viewed that restructuring as a step towards a separate sale or listing.

Instead, Boots has been sold outright, ending the prospect of a London market listing for one of the UK's best-known retail brands. The deal also means Boots changes hands for the second time in little more than a year.

"The idea that a chemist was a safe, undramatic retail business has been completely overturned. When Parcelhero wrote our first report on the impact of eCommerce, '2030: The Death of the High Street', in 2016, we did not even analyse the sector because it looked like the one part of town centre retail that would never change. We could not have foreseen the implosion of the high street pharmacy market in the face of the unprecedented growth of online pharmacies. Boots is now the last giant standing, and it is about to change hands for the second time in little over a year. Lloydspharmacy went from well over a thousand branches to liquidation and a revived online brand, which tells you where the market is heading. The Westons already run a huge pharmacy chain in Canada and understand how prescriptions, beauty and loyalty fit together. That is a very different proposition from a US parent that has been selling off the pieces," Jinks said.

The immediate challenge for Boots will be to maintain its national store presence while competing in a market where more pharmacy demand is being fulfilled remotely. The wider question is how many of the roughly 13,000 community pharmacies still operating across the UK can adapt to the same pressure.