Alliance Boots agrees store disposals
Alliance Boots today said it had signed contracts for the sale of almost all of the pharmacies it put up for sale in the wake of its £7bn (€10.5bn) merger.
The group agreed to dispose of 96 sites last year as part of the approval from competition authorities for the merger of Boots and Alliance UniChem.
It has so far signed conditional contracts to sell 89, including 21 to Manchester-based Co-operative Group. The move will leave the Co-op – the UK’s third largest pharmacy – with 454 branches. It will take on around 170 Alliance Boots staff at the outlets, which will be rebranded as The Co-operative Pharmacy.
Co-operative Group chief executive Martin Beaumont called it a “very significant acquisition”. He added: “In recent years our pharmacy business has grown rapidly, and we continue to have ambitious plans for future expansion and development.”
The sale, conditional on approval from the Office of Fair Trading, should be completed by around the middle of March. Five of the stores are in the North East of England, six in East Anglia and ten in the South West.
Boots and Alliance UniChem began life as a single company in July following their long-awaited merger to create a pharmacy giant with a retail network of almost 3,000 outlets.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it would not refer the £7bn (€10.5bn) tie-up to the Competition Commission after the companies agreed to dispose of stores in 100 communities where the two businesses are dominant.
It had been feared that the loss of rivalry between Boots and UniChem pharmacies in certain areas would reduce choice for customers and lessen competition.
