Good morning! We’re turning once again to Boots, the health and beauty retailer which has been the subject of dealmaking for the past two decades. 

Last night we revealed that the owners of Boots were in $10bn takeover talks with Australian pharmacy chain Sigma and the Canadian branch of the Weston family which controls Loblaws and pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart.

If a tie-up is successful it deals a blow to the hopes of a London stock market listing revival and also, potentially, the career prospects of Alex Baldock who left his top job at Currys due to the promise of a flotation payday. 

But it’s clear octogenarian tycoon Stefano Pessina is keen to roll the dice once again. 

Pessina has done over 1,000 deals in his lifetime to build a pharmacy empire. He did the original deal to merge Boots with Alliance UniChem before delisting it, then engineered a reverse takeover of US rival Walgreens — before delisting the group again at a steep discount through a $23.7bn take-private deal last year.

We interviewed Pessina in April when he promised to “recreate” all the value that had been lost. 

There had been a general acceptance that Sycamore Partners and Pessina had chopped Walgreens Boots Alliance, as it was formerly known, into five standalone companies with the intention of offloading Boots sooner rather than later. Most speculation focused on an IPO. 

We hear that British retailers, including supermarkets, were also approached about their potential interest, but pesky competition law meant that it would have been too high a bar for a neat exit.

Boots has been on the block twice already in the past four years. Perhaps a third time is the charm?

Do you think Boots would benefit from more stable ownership? Tell us what you think. Email us at [email protected] or hit reply to this email.

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City Bulletin is edited by Jonathan Moules