Boots could float on the London stock market next year under plans being examined by its American owner.
Walgreens Boots Alliance has resumed talks to sell the High Street chemist after efforts collapsed last year.
Among the options being discussed is a listing on the stock market in London, according to Bloomberg, in what would be a major boost for the City.
The chain could be valued at £7billion, the same price tag the business was put up for sale with last year before Walgreens backtracked a few months later.
It blamed an ‘unexpected and dramatic change’ in market conditions as its reason for ditching the sales process.
Boots’s parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance has resumed talks to offload the High Street chemist after efforts to sell it collapsed last year
Private equity giants Apollo, TDR Capital and Sycamore made pitches at the time.
But Walgreens later said no one was able to make an adequate offer amid volatility in global financial markets.
Last month, Boots sold its pension scheme to Legal & General for £4.8billion, paving the way for a potential sale of the 174-year-old chain.
At the time, experts said that the pension scheme deal, which was one of the largest of its kind, could make it smoother for a sale of Boots.
Should Boots, which began as a family herbal medicine shop in Nottingham in 1849, make a return to the London exchange, it would be a sorely needed boost for UK markets.
The London stock market has been blighted by companies opting for New York listings.
In a major blow this year, Cambridge chipmaker Arm decided to list on Wall Street despite a campaign by politicians to persuade it to pick London.
Boots made a shock departure from London in 2007 when Alliance Boots became the first FTSE 100 firm to be bought by a private equity firm.
Walgreens, which took control of the business in 2014, has faced pressure to dispose of Boots in recent years so it can prioritise its US business.
Behind the global pharmacy giant is Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina, the largest single shareholder, and his partner Ornella Barra, who is also Walgreens’ chief operating officer.
Speaking to the Mail in March 2022, Barra refused to govern out an IPO for Boots and said ‘everything is on the table’.
‘If the offers [from private equity bidders] are not in line with our expectations we could come back to an IPO.
‘At the beginning we had the idea of an IPO, but we didn’t start the process because the offers came in.’
Last night, Boots UK declined to comment on the claims.
