(Bloomberg) -- Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., the troubled drug-store chain in turnaround mode, is exploring options including a sale of Shields Health Solutions, the specialty pharmacy business it acquired a majority of three years ago, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The business could be valued at more than $4 billion in a sale, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the details aren’t public. Walgreens is working with advisers to scope out interest in Shields Health, which is expected to draw interest from private equity firms and health-care companies, the people said. 

No decision has been made and Walgreens could opt to hold onto the business, the people added. 

A representative for Walgreens declined to comment.

“A Walgreens divestiture of Shields would represent a pointed reversal of the prior CEO’s strategy to diversify,” Jonathan Palmer, a senior industry analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a research note Wednesday. “A sale makes financial sense to shore up the balance sheet, but the specialty-solutions provider plays in an adjacent market where the strategic rationale for owning it remains strong.”

Walgreens rose 1% to $22.81 at at 9:40 a.m. in New York trading Wednesday, giving the Deerfield, Illinois-based company a market value of about $19.6 billion. 

Walgreens has fallen by 37% in the past year as the drugstore chain grapples with high debt and what Chief Executive Officer Tim Wentworth described this month as a “challenging consumer backdrop.”  Wentworth, who took over in October, said in Walgreens’s latest quarterly report that the company was “evaluating all strategic options” as it looks to cut costs and increase cash flow. 

Walgreens has nearly halved its dividend and has also revived plans to exit its international Boots chain, which could fetch about $8.8 billion, Bloomberg News reported last month. 

Specialty pharmacies such as Shields Health help health-care providers cater to patients with complex and chronic conditions such as cancer. Walgreens took control of the business through a series of transactions in recent years as former CEO Roz Brewer went on an acquisition blitz to diversify the company into primary care and other aspects of the industry. 

Walgreens acquired a minority stake in the company in 2019, took majority control in 2021 and bought out the last 30% for $1.37 billion in 2022. Shields Health has served more than one million patients and has nearly 80 “health system partners” representing about 1,000 hospitals, Walgreens said in a statement announcing the full takeover. 

--With assistance from Fiona Rutherford.

(Adds analyst comment in fifth paragraph; updates trading in sixth paragraph)

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