Sigma Healthcare—which counts Australian billionaire brothers Jack and Sam Gance and their business partner Mario Verrochi as its biggest shareholders—is in talks to buy U.K. health and beauty retailer The Boots Group, doubling down on its expansion plans in London.
The potential sale of Boots in a deal that could be valued at over $10 billion to bidders including Sigma Healthcare and the Weston family, the controlling shareholder of Canada’s largest supermarket chain, Loblaw, was first reported by the Financial Times on Tuesday. A successful sale would mean Boots will scrap its London IPO plans, according to the newspaper.
Melbourne-based Sigma confirmed that it’s in talks with Boots in an Australian stock exchange filing on Wednesday. “Sigma continuously reviews opportunities that would create value for shareholders and has engaged in preliminary discussions in relation to the sale process,” Sigma said in the filing. “There is no certainty that any transaction will eventuate.”
Sigma Healthcare has been seeking to expand in the U.K. and had last month partnered with British pharmacy chain Greenlight Healthcare to rollout Chemist Warehouse-branded stores in London and provide inventory management and marketing support to Greenlight’s 22 stores across the city.
A successful acquisition of Boots would accelerate Sigma Healthcare’s international expansion plans. Boots operates in 11 countries including Ireland, Mexico and Thailand with a total of 3,776 retail stores as of last August. Boots is also expanding through franchise partnerships in the Middle East and Indonesia.
In February 2025, Chemist Warehouse merged with Sigma Healthcare, creating a pharmacy giant valued at more than $22 billion. The company has over 950 stores across Australia, China, Dubai, Ireland, and New Zealand.
Australian billionaire brothers Jack and Sam Gance started their first drugstore in 1972 and partnered with Verrochi to establish the Chemist Warehouse pharmacy chain in 1995. With a net real-time net worth of $5.5 billion, Verrochi is among Australia’s richest tycoons, according to Forbes’ real-time data. Jack Gance has a real-time net worth of $3.4 billion, while his younger brother Sam has a real-time net worth of $3.2 billion.
This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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