Stefano Pessina, the Alliance Boots executive chairman, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), the American private equity firm, took full control of the company yesterday after Richard Baker, its chief executive, and Scott Wheway, its health and beauty retail director, were edged out in a board-room putsch.

Alliance Boots announced its new management lineup after last month’s acquisition by KKR and Mr Pessina for £11.1 billion. It is understood that Mr Baker, who joined Boots in 2003, was offered a chief executive role in the newly private company, but decided to leave since Mr Pessina would retain executive responsibilities as Alliance Boots’s executive chairman.

It is also believed that Mr Wheway, seen as a “rising star” by some observers, chose to leave to seek a chief executive-level position elsewhere. The new management team will not contain a chief executive role.

Mr Baker will leave Alliance Boots with about £10 million, which includes £6.5 million in share options that vested when the company was taken private by KKR and Mr Pessina, as well as one year’s salary and a full bonus. Neither Mr Baker or Mr Wheway are on gardening leave and can take a new post immediately. Sir Nigel Rudd, nonexecutive chairman at Boots since 2003 and also chairman of Alliance Boots, has left the company.

After the £7 billion merger between Boots and Alliance Unichem in July last year, Mr Baker and Mr Wheway were the only two former Boots plc directors to have seats on the board of the combined companies. The remaining four positions were held by Alliance Unichem directors, including Mr Pessina and Ornella Barra, Mr Pessina’s long-term partner and the head of the group’s wholesale division. Under the new ten-strong management team, which is dominated by six former Alliance Unichem directors, Ms Barra will report to Mr Pessina.

Only two former Boots directors form part of the new Alliance Boots lineup: Alex Gourlay, healthcare and store development director, and Stephen Lehane, the head of human resources and corporate affairs. Dominic Murphy, a KKR partner, has been named as a director along with Mattia Caprioli, also from KKR.

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