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A near-unknown from the continent had just snapped up a high-street stalwart – and City newsrooms were agog.
一個來自歐洲大陸的幾乎不為人知的人剛剛搶購了一個商業街中堅品牌——城市的新聞編輯室對此興奮不已。
The guy even sounded exotic. He came from Italy, but had moved to Monaco, the principality famous for not levying income tax.
這家伙甚至聽起來很有異國情調。他從意大利來到摩納哥，這個公國以不征收所得稅而聞名。
He collected yachts and Italian old masters.
他收集游艇和意大利早期繪畫大師的作品。
Separated from his wife, he had got together with girlfriend Ornella Barra after buying her family’s business – then made her head of his wholesale operations.
與妻子分居后，他與女友奧內拉·巴拉相識，買下了她的家族企業，然后讓她擔任他的批發業務主管。
With his white hair and rimless glasses,
佩西納白發蒼蒼，戴著無框眼鏡，
Pessina looked less like a typical FTSE bureaucrat and more like a continental football manager, here to save the ailing local side.
他看起來不像典型的富時官僚，而更像歐洲大陸的足球經理，他來這里是為了拯救境況不佳的當地球隊。
“He confesses to living a peripatetic lifestyle, jetting between his home in Monaco,
《每日電訊報》2007年報道，“他承認自己過著一種四處游蕩的生活，經常乘飛機往返于摩納哥的家中，
where he has to spend at least 90 nights a year to qualify for its low-tax regime,
他每年至少要在那里住90個晚上，才有資格享受那里的低稅收制度，
and his offices in Italy and in London,” reported the Telegraph in 2007.
以及他在意大利和倫敦的辦公室。”
“The two mobiles and a BlackBerry laid in front of him are clearly more important than any office.”
“擺在他面前的兩部手機和一部黑莓手機顯然比任何辦公室都重要。”
After all, offices are not necessary when hunting for deals – and Pessina has a genius for making deals.
畢竟，在尋找交易時，辦公室不是必要的，而佩西納有做交易的天賦。
By 2005, when he invited Boots executives for merger talks on his yacht off Sardinia, he had already bought more than 500 firms.
到2005年，當他在撒丁島附近的游艇上邀請博姿公司的高管參加并購談判時，他已經收購了500多家公司。
Yet the press gave little consideration to the precise nature of this latest deal – and how that might change a business delivering a vital public service.
然而，媒體幾乎沒有考慮這宗最新交易的確切性質，以及這將如何改變一家提供重要公共服務的企業。
One man who was worried about Britain’s new king of medicine was Bill Scott.
一個擔心英國新的藥物之王的人是比爾·斯科特。
Until March 2015, Scott had been Scotland’s chief pharmaceutical officer for 22 years, leading policy-making on pharmacy.
在2015年3月之前，斯科特擔任蘇格蘭首席制藥官22年，領導制藥政策制定。
It was from that vantage point that he watched the takeover.
他就是從那個有利的位置見證了這次接管。
“The feeling was that it would fundamentally change the ethos of Boots,” Scott told me.
斯科特告訴我：“我感覺這將從根本上改變博姿藥妝的風格。”
He and his colleagues had always regarded the company as “ethical” – because it was “very much driven by pharmacists themselves”.
他和他的同事一直認為該公司是“有道德的”——因為它“在很大程度上是由藥劑師自己推動的”。
Now, with the money men in charge, it seemed the future was less certain.
現在，有了財閥掌控公司，未來似乎不那么確定了。
