By linking up with Stefano Pessina, the executive deputy chairman of Alliance Boots, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts has joined up with the man who counts most at the pan-European retail and drugs distributor.

The Italian billionaire, who pulled off a £7.8bn merger of Boots and Alliance UniChem in August last year, is Alliance Boots’s biggest shareholder with 15 per cent of the company. He also controls the board, given that seven of the 13 board members come from the Alliance UniChem ranks.