Boots sold to the Weston family for $8.9 billion, with Fairfax funding up to $2.3 billion for half the equity

Wittington Investments, the Canadian holding company of the Weston family, agreed on Wednesday, October 7, 2026 to buy the British pharmacy chain Boots for about $8.9 billion including assumed debt. Fairfax Financial Holdings is its partner: it will provide up to about $2.3 billion toward the price and is expected to own 50% of Boots' equity after closing, while Wittington takes operational control. The sellers are Sycamore Partners, which bought Boots as part of its roughly $24 billion buyout of Walgreens Boots Alliance in 2025, and the family of Stefano Pessina, the former Walgreens Boots Alliance executive chairman. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

Boots deal terms

What Wittington is buying, and what stays with the sellers

The perimeter is Boots' UK and Ireland retail operations, a chain of about 1,800 stores, together with Boots Opticians, the No7 Beauty Company and Boots' Thailand and franchised businesses. Two businesses that sat in the same group stay with the current owners: the Mexican pharmacy chain Farmacias Benavides and the German drug wholesaler Alliance Healthcare Deutschland.

Galen Weston, who chairs Wittington and the Canadian grocer and pharmacy operator Loblaw and is chief executive of George Weston Ltd., becomes chair of Boots once the deal closes. Fairfax, the Toronto insurance and investment group led by Prem Watsa, puts up a large share of the money and half of the equity without taking day-to-day control, which leaves the Westons running the business while sharing the cost.

What the price says about Sycamore's Walgreens buyout

Sycamore paid roughly $24 billion for all of Walgreens Boots Alliance in 2025 and then separated the group into standalone businesses. The Boots sale alone brings in $8.9 billion, about 37% of that buyout value, fourteen months after the buyout closed in August 2025.