Boots reveals plans for minimal store closures

The integration of Boots Opticians with Dollond & Aitchison which will lead to some store closures and job losses will happen 'as soon as possible', Stefano Pessina, executive chairman of Boots Alliance told Optician this week.

Speaking after the company's media briefing on Monday to announce its preliminary results for the year to March 31 2009, Pessina who had earlier confirmed that there would be closures where Boots and D&A branches currently exist within close proximity of each other, emphasised that he felt that there would be minimal closures and only a few redundancies. He was also keen to point out that Alliance Boots did not have access to all the necessary data in order to make these decisions until the formal merger of both businesses was completed earlier this month.