Going private

KKR has added a spoonful of sugar to its bid for Alliance Boots. The private equity group has raised its price for the UK healthcare group to £10.40 a share, giving an enterprise value of £11.4bn. That has secured the due diligence KKR wanted, and is probably enough to wring a recommendation from the board. True, the price isn’t a knock-out. But it is a respectable 30% premium to Boots’ average share price in the six months before KKR revealed its hand. At 13 times ebitda for the current financi...