Boots No7 to become a $1bn brand

By PETER RANSCOMBE
Published on 25/06/2012 00:00

AMERICAN retailer Walgreens’ deal to buy a stake in Boots will turn the British chemist’s No7 make-up range into a $1 billion (£650 million) global brand, sources have revealed.

Last week the US chain agreed to take a 45 per cent share in Alliance Boots from private equity firm KKR, with the option of purchasing the rest of the firm within the next three years.

Now sources close to the deal have outlined how the No7 range, which is advertised by actress Keeley Hawes, will be taken around the world thanks to a listing in Walgreens’ US stores.

No7 already brings in sales of about £200m a year but is expected to hit the $1bn mark within the next three years, the sources claimed. Boots sold a year’s worth of products in just two weeks in 2007 after a BBC documentary claimed it was the only anti-ageing facial cream to have any measurable effect above and beyond that of regular moisturisers.

No7 will be rolled out to most of Walgreens’ 6,000 branches as part of efforts to create a global chemist chain with operations in about 25 countries.

KKR took Alliance Boots off the London Stock Exchange in 2007 in an £11.1bn deal, Europe’s largest private equity buyout. The firm teamed up with Stefano Pessina, now Boots’ executive chairman, to complete the massive deal.