InnovationHealthcareWalgreens holders Apve $10 Billion Private Equity BuyoutByBruce Japsen, Senior Contributor. Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights.
Bruce Japsen writes healthcare and policy. AuthorJul 11, 2025, 10:10am EDTJul 11, 2025, 10:26am EDTWalgreens Boots Alliance holders Friday apved private equity firm Sycamore Partners’ $10.
More billion buyout offer for the iconic drugstore chain, the company said July 11, 2025.
In this April 20218 photo, a sign hangs over the entrance to a Walgreens pharmacy and store in Alexandria, Virginia.
(Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)Getty Images Walgreens Boots Alliance holders Friday apved private equity firm Sycamore Partners’ $10 billion buyout offer for the iconic drugstore chain.
First announced in March, the deal apved by holders calls for the private equity firm Sycamore Partners to pay $11. 45 per — 29% above the December stock price for Walgreens.
Sycamore also agreed to “one non-transferable right" to receive up to $3 in cash per Walgreens “from the future monetization of WBA’s debt and equity interests in VillageMD, which includes the Village Medical, Summit Health and CityMD es,” the companies said of Walgreens’ primary care es.
96% of votes cast were in favor of the merger agreement posal, according to a preliminary tally released Friday morning at a special meeting of holders.
“We appreciate the consideration and overwhelming support from our holders in our value-maximizing transaction with Sycamore,” Walgreens chief executive officer Tim Wentworth said after the holder vote was disclosed.
“With Sycamore’s partnership, we will be better positioned to accelerate our turnaround strategy, further enhance the customer, patient and team member experience and become the first choice for pharmacy, retail and health services.
We look forward to closing the transaction and entering this next chapter.
” Walgreens still expects to close the transaction in the third or fourth quarter of this year, “subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory apvals,” the company said Friday.
MORE FOR YOU The deal, rumored for months, comes after Walgreens, which had a market value of more than $100 billion a decade ago, undertook a failed in-store clinic rollout that led it to close hundreds of stores to reduce debt and stem financial losses.
Under former chief executive Roz Brewer, Walgreens spent billions of dollars in and operating physician-staffed clinic operator VillageMD.
Walgreens invested more than $6 billion in VillageMD under Brewer to take a controlling stake, but the company has already scaled back dramatically on the expansion of doctor practices and clinics the company opened.
In 2020, Walgreens said it planned to open 500 to 700 “Village Medical at Walgreens” physician-led primary care clinics in more than 30 U.
Over five years, with the “intent to build hundreds more thereafter.
” But Wentworth, who replaced Brewer in October 2023, said a year ago that the company and its partner VillageMD had slowed the number of clinic openings in part because the operators haven’t been able to fill their “patient panels,” which are a certain number of individual patients under the care of a specific vider.
The billions of dollars in losses on the VillageMD investment was largely to blame for a net loss of more than $8 billion for the company’s fiscal 2024.
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