Business opportunity missed

Off this morning to collect my warfarin, as usual from Lloyd's in Epsom's market place. To find that they are now called Pearl. The young lady that served me explained that Lloyds was a conglomerate which was shrinking down to its core finance operation. All the front-line staff had been kept on but there was a new management team at the top. And orders were fulfilled from Tooting rather than from the Ruislip operation noticed at reference 5. I reminisced about the days when the pharmacy underneath Addenbrooke's Hospital - New Site as it was then called - used to carry large bottles of powders and potions and were sometimes known to use things like chemical balances and pestles & mortars.

Checking back home, I find that until recently Lloyd's was part of a larger health care empire called McKesson, the founder having made his pile and sold out years ago - with the odd legal tussle along the way. Itself the European end of the US McKesson Corporation. See references 2a and 2b. 

I then find that at around the turn of the year, McKesson sold the Lloyd's operation to the asset manager Aurelius of reference 3. An outfit which manages all kinds of things and is not particularly into health. But it does seem to be largely run by people who have done time with outfits like PWC and Deloitte, those pillars of our accounting establishment.

Aurelius must be pretty quick on their feet, as it looks as if they then sold on some of the Lloyd's stores to the South London pharmacy group called Pearl, possibly headquartered in Tooting, from where my warfarin order had been fulfilled.

All a bit too frantic for me.

PS 1: the Aurelius operation includes the Pullman trucking business snapped above. Not yet clear where Bell & Croyden, the prestige pharmacy in Wigmore Street, founded in 1798, has landed. I shall have to pop in and ask next time I am that way.

PS 2: as far as I could see, the websites below have yet to take all this on board. Not quite so fast on their feet.

References

Reference 1: https://lloydspharmacy.com/.

Reference 2a: https://www.mckesson.eu/mck-en/.

Reference 2b: https://www.mckesson.com/.

Reference 3: https://aurelius-group.com/en/.

Reference 4: https://www.pearlchemistgroup.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/trolley-368.html.