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Lloyds Pharmacy has put all its UK store base up for “strategic review”.
The process launched by the pharmacy chain’s private equity owner could lead to the sale or closure of all 1,300 sites, according to The Sun.
The business employs about 17,000 staff and dispenses 150 million prescriptions a year.
Lloyds has already announced the closure of its more than 200 pharmacies located insider Sainsbury’s stores by the end of the year.
It follows 76 sites being closed in 2022 by the lossmaking business.
The review of the business comes less than a year after private equity firm Aurelius bought Lloyds for £477m.
A spokesperson for Lloyds told The Sun: “LloydsPharmacy regularly reviews its pharmacy estate to ensure it is operating sustainably and any decision to sell stores is taken in the interests of patients, colleagues and the business.”
Morning update
It is a quiet start to the week for fmcg news on the markets.
The FTSE 100 opened flat at 7,944.64pts.
Early risers included PayPoint, up 4.2% to 517p, HelloFresh, up 3.9% to €21.68, Glanbia, up 2.5% to €13.16, Nichols, up 1.5% to 1,053p, and McBride, up 1.2% to 26.3p.
Ocado is among the early fallers, down 3.2% to 532.5p, while Bakkavor is down 1.9% to 105p and Pets at Home is down 1.5% to 380.2p.
This week in the City
There plenty scheduled this week, kicking off with annual results from Greggs tomorrow.
Nielsen also reveals its latest monthly grocery till roll figures tomorrow, alongside the retail sales survey for February from BRC-KPMG and the latest spending data from Barclays. In Europe, Lindt and HelloFresh will also update.
Prepared food manufacturer Bakkavor and sausage casings maker Devro post preliminaries on Wednesday morning, with interims from Hotel Chocolat, while Jack Daniel’s distiller Brown-Forman and Campbell Soup report in the US in the afternoon.
Shopping centre owner Hammerson files full-year figures on Thursday.
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