Richard Baker said he would like to see Kohlberg Kravis Roberts come to a speedy agreement with trustees of the Alliance Boots pension, over the additional cash injection required to meet their concerns on retirement promises, ahead of a shareholder vote today on the £11.1bn public-to-private deal.

Mr Baker, the current chief executive who KKR has said it would like to keep on after the high street chain and drug wholesaler is taken private, said yesterday that he was keen to see the dispute "resolved as quickly as possible", acknowledging that uncertainty was damaging for morale. Boots has 67,000 members in its pension scheme.