With Morrisons’ having announced that it wants to sell many of its in-store pharmacies, the private equity owner of Boots reportedly keen to buy some of them, The Times reports.
Sycamore Partners, which currently owns the Boots chain, is said to be exploring options, though no formal bid has been tabled.
The supermarket chain intends to sell each pharmacy branch individually rather than collectively, as it focuses on traditional retail.
Morrisons intends to retain the pharmacy brand and a sizable number of its 120 sites, the daily reports.
Morrisons was acquired by the American private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice in 2021.
The deal added £6.6 billion of debt to its balance sheet and has been struggling to bring it down.
The supermarket incurred a loss of £381 million last year, fuelled by steep borrowing costs.
Last year, it closed down four pharmacies, alongside 52 cafés, 17 convenience stores, 35 meat counters, and 13 florists.
Cohens offer to the staff
Meanwhile, Cohens Chemist, a large independent pharmacy group with over 200 branches in the UK, has sounded on LinkedIn that it would consider hiring pharmacy professionals impacted by changes in Morrisons.
It stated in a LinkedIn post, "We would like to reach out to any of our pharmacy colleagues at Morrisons pharmacy who are/maybe affected by future changes."
It had urged the impacted employees to drop a direct message through LinkedIn.
Cohens Chemist had recently purchased Whittle Pharmacies, a family-run group that owns eight community pharmacies in the North West of England.
The Whittle was operated by brother and sister duo, Umesh and Vil Patel, who plan to retire after running the group for 27 years.
