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Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is in the race for Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc’s international drugstore unit, according to various media reports.
Boots could be valued at as much as 7 billion pounds ($9.1 billion) in a sale, Bloomberg News reported previously.
Deliberations are ongoing and there is no certainty Reliance will decide to make a bid for Boots, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Walgreens and Reliance are yet to respond on this.
Walgreens has been pursuing the sale of Boots for some time as the US giant is shifting its focus on primary healthcare.
According to reports, the front runners include Issa brothers, owners of supermarket chain Asda and UK retailer EG Group.
Boots has also drawn interest from PE firms including Apollo Management and TDR Capital, Bloomberg reported.
(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)
