Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is said to be in talks with international banks to raise around $8bn to fund the acquisition of UK pharmacy & chemist chain Boots, as reported by Mint. These banks include Deutsche Bank AG, Barclays Bank Plc, Standard Chartered Bank, and HSBC. In early June, RIL and private equity firm Apollo Global Management in a consortium, made a binding bid for Boots UK, an arm of US-based Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). The deal valuation is expected at £5-6bn ($6.2-$7.5bn). In the next few weeks, WBA is likely to meet for discussing a potential deal with the consortium. Previously as per Bloomberg, WBA had sought a valuation of £7bn ($8.6bn) for Boots.
Walgreen’s dollar bonds guaranteed by WBA were trading lower with its 4.4% 2042s down over 0.53 points to 81.49, yielding 5.99%. Reliance’s 6.25% 2040s were down 0.3 points to 111.7, yielding 5.25%
