The Canadian family that once owned Selfridges department store has bought the UK pharmacy and beauty retailer Boots for $8.9bn (£6.74bn).

Wittington Investments, the holding company of the Weston family that controls the Loblaws grocery chain and Drugmart pharmacy chain in Canada, will own Boots’ UK and Irish retail operations and opticians chain, the No7 beauty brand and a franchise arm in Thailand.

The acquisition of the Nottingham-headquartered chain, which has 1,800 stores across the UK and employs 50,000 people, is also being backed by the investment firm Fairfax, which owns The Sporting Life Group and Sleep Country, Canada’s largest mattress retailer, which owns Simba Sleep in the UK.

Galen Weston, the chair of Wittington, who is likely to become chair of Boots, said: “Boots is one of Britain’s most enduring businesses, with a rich heritage, a trusted name and a vital role in everyday life across the UK and Ireland.

“We see a meaningful opportunity to make a great business even better through stable long-term ownership, further capital investment, and the renewed operating focus required to serve customers with excellence for generations to come.”

The transaction, which sees the exit of Boots’ long-term backer Stefano Pessina and his latest backer, the financial firm Sycamore Partners, is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

In 2022, the US pharmacy group Walgreens put Boots up for sale with a suggested price tag of up to £10bn, but it later dropped the plans as potential buyers, including Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, the US private equity investor Apollo Global Management and Asda’s owners TDR Capital, struggled to raise funds. A plan to float the business at a valuation of about £7bn was dropped in 2024.

“Boots is an iconic brand and a British institution,” said Pessina, who took Boots private with the backing of the investment firm KKR in 2007. He has since kept a stake under different private equity owners and merged and demerged it from Walgreens.

“It has been one of the privileges of my and [my wife] Ornella’s life to have been so closely associated with Boots over the last 20 years. We are delighted to be passing on a thriving Boots to strong and reliable owners who understand the value of its great heritage.”

Pessina will retain ownership of Boots’ interests in the Farmacias Benavides pharmacy chain in Mexico and the Alliance Healthcare Deutschland, a German drug distributor.

The acquisition of Boots marks the return of the Weston family’s Canadian branch to the UK high street, after the family sold off the Selfridges department store chain for £4bn in 2022.

The separate UK branch of the family’s company is known for holding a majority stake in Primark through the parent company Associated British Foods, which is led by family member George Weston.

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Richard Hyman, the veteran retail analyst, said the Weston family were “the most encouraging ownership of Boots for many, many years”.

He said: “For years, watching Boots has been a bit like watching corporate pass the parcel. Its ownership has changed with extraordinary frequency and each owner has stripped a bit more out of it.”

Hyman said Boots had an opportunity to make more of its vast loyalty scheme and to offer more services through its network of stores across the UK, many of which had seen little modernisation in recent decades.

Boots has closed more than 300 outlets in recent years. It is unclear whether its new owners plan to close more shops, but they are likely to take a close look given the rising costs of high street retail, the shift of trade to online, and competition from discounters such as Savers, Lidl and Home Bargains.

Hyman said: “Boots needs and deserves owners that will show it a bit of love, and history shows the Westons take a longer view.”