Boots is up for sale to the highest bidder, but where are they all?

theguardian.com:

Roll up, roll up, who wants to buy Boots, a grand old name of UK retailing with 170 years of history under its belt? Not many people, it seems. Or rather, not many at a price the seller, the US group Walgreens, had hoped to achieve.

The reported joint bid of slightly more than £5bn from Reliance Industries of India and the US private equity fund Apollo is a long way short of where the rumour-mill had suggested the winning line would lie. Advisers had been trying to talk the price into £7bn-plus territory. There’s still time for the action to heat up (the ubiquitous Issa brothers of Asda and EG petrol forecourt fame are not formally out yet) but there’s an unmistakable lack of buzz around this transaction.

While Boots’ management warbles cheerfully about a “rejuvenated store portfolio and an increasingly powerful online presence”, the rest of the world sees a long tail of tired-looking shops and a threat from online specialists attacking the high-margin end of the beauty range. The success of the No 7 beauty brand is masking a lot of longstanding problems.

The prescription of most outsiders involves heavy investment to bring the estate up to the standard of the few flagship stores (especially in smarter parts of London) that have had a full makeover. Anything is possible under new ownership, but there’s also a risk of mixed incentives under a consortium model, especially if Walgreens itself, owner since 2012, is obliged to retain an interest. Reliance’s interest may be spurred by thoughts of Asian expansion; Apollo, one assumes, would just want to be in and out within five years in normal private equity style.

At the right price, buyers should still be able to make decent money. But the contrast with the highly competitive