Walgreens Boots Alliance boss Stefano Pessina steps down

Pessina, who remains the largest shareholder in Walgreens Boots Alliance with a 17% stake, will replace Jim Skinner as executive chair of the pharmaceuticals giant as soon as a new chief executive is found. 

Pessina orchestrated the combination of Walgreens and Alliance Boots back in 2015 and the group continues to own the Boots chain in the UK.

Although Boots has suffered a turbulent period of high street trading – it warned earlier this month that it would axe 4,000 jobs following the coronavirus pandemic – it continues to operate almost 2,500 stores and employs 54,000 staff.  

Pessina trained as a nuclear engineer before joining the family’s pharmacy business in his 30s. 

He rapidly expanded the company through a series of acquisitions, eventually forming Alliance Santé, which he merged with Unichem in 1998. 

Pessina merged the business with Boots in 2006, creating Alliance Boots, and a year later joined forces with US private equity giant KKR to take the group private in a landmark deal – it was the first time a FTSE 100 company had been acquired by a private equity firm.

Walgreens bought a 45% stake in Alliance Boots in 2012 and acquired the remainder of the business in 2014.

The group’s market cap has more than halved during Pessina’s time as chief executive and suffered a $1.6bn (£1.2bn) operating loss in the third quarter of its current financial year. That compared with a $1.2bn (£934m) profit during the same period in 2019.