Walgreens, headquartered in Deerfield and photographed at their first two story super Walgreens store in Chicago at Randolph and State Streets Monday April 14, 2014 is under pressure from some shareholders to move their headquarters to Europe for tax benefits. B583665257Z.1 (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune) ct ....OUTSIDE TRIBUNE CO.- NO MAGS, NO SALES, NO INTERNET, NO TV, CHICAGO OUT, NO DIGITAL MANIPULATION... (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

       Walgreens Boots Alliance is exploring the possibility of selling or spinning off one of the United Kingdom’s largest and best known pharmacy chains - Boots, Sky News is reporting.

       A spokesman for the Deerfield-based international pharmacy behemoth said in a statement that the company “does not comment on market speculation.” But the London-based news outlet, citing sources, says the company has asked Goldman Sachs to advise it on a sale or spinning off the Boots pharmacies under its umbrella into a new company.

       It comes less than a decade after the 2014 multi-billion-dollar merger of Walgreen and Alliance Boots.

       Walgreens has at once been cutting costs in some corners while spending in others to get more customers into its brick-and-mortar stores as the company contends with rapid changes in health care and its drugstore operations face steep competition from the likes of CVS Health and Amazon.

       In October Walgreens announced it planned to invest $5.2 billion in Chicago-based VillageMD, which provides primary care to patients. The aim, the company said, was to increase the number of Village Medical clinics in its stores to 1,000 by 2027. The investment gives Walgreens a majority ownership stake — 63% — in VillageMD.

       Boots has 2,200 stores in the UK and 55,000 employees, Sky News reports. Meantime, Walgreens has just under 9,000 stores in the U.S., according to the company website.

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