Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has reportedly teamed up with US private equity fund Apollo Global Management to make a £5 billion bid for the UK chemist chain Boots, people with knowledge of the matter said. US parent Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) will retain an unspecified minority stake as part of the deal.

It was not immediately clear how much stake the Reliance-Apollo combine intended to pick up. Reliance will add pharmacy and beauty retailing to its burgeoning retail business through the acquisition.

The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate is likely to expand Boots in India. A spokesperson for Reliance declined to comment on the mounting speculation over an imminent transaction to seal the deal.

Boots currently has a presence in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Thailand and Indonesia.

It has over 2,200 stores, most of them old, in the UK that need investment for sprucing up as they struggle to deal with retailing shifting online. Boots’ US parent put the business up for sale last December to focus on healthcare in its domestic market. The company also manages private-label brands such as No7 Beauty Co and operations in a smattering of other countries.

Founded by Quaker John Boot in 1849, Boots has been in private hands since 2007 after it teamed up with Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina’s Alliance Unichem. WBA in 2017 sold off the Boots manufacturing business. including its Nottingham factory, to the France-based specialist Fareva.

Sources said private equity groups Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners dropped out in the early part of the bid process.

It was not known if another potential bidder — owners of UK supermarket group Asda, brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private equity group TDR Capital — have made a bid. In May last year, Walgreens Boots Alliance Ltd acquired 1,000 shares under a rights issue by WBA International Ltd for a consideration of £915 million.

The company’s annual report shows an impairment loss of £1.5 billion was recognized in relation to the investment in WBA International. The US parent has been forced to underwrite guarantees worth billions of pounds and has been looking to find partners who will assume a substantial portion of that burden.

This could prove to be a sticking point in any transaction and negotiators on both sides will need to resolve it in a manner that it doesn’t pose a major problem going forward.