Walgreen Said to Plan Bond Sale Before Alliance Boots Purchase

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — Walgreen Co. is planning to sell bonds as it prepares to pay about $15.3 billion for the part of Alliance Boots it doesn’t already own.

The biggest U.S. drugstore chain is proposing notes in several currencies with varying maturities, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

Walgreen previously controlled about 45 percent of Boots, the Swiss company that runs pharmacy and beauty stores in Europe. It will pay about $5.29 billion in cash and $10 billion in Walgreen stock for the remaining stake, the Deerfield, Illinois-based company said in an Aug. 6 statement.

The bond sale will be managed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to the person familiar with the matter.

Alliance Boots loaded up on debt in a 11.1 billion pound ($17.7 billion) leveraged buyout before the credit crisis in a deal arranged by KKR & Co. and Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina. Walgreen took a stake in the company for $6.7 billion in 2012, with an option to gain full control of the chain, in an effort to build a global pharmacy business.

The Walgreen may issue as much as $10 billion of bonds, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday without saying where it got the information.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Glover in London at [e-mail] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shelley Smith at [e-mail] Michael Shanahan, Abigail Moses