Alliance Boots boosted by anti-ageing cream sales

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Alliance Boots has said its half-year figures were helped by good sales of anti-ageing Protect and Perfect creams.

The company said same-store revenues for its health and beauty division grew by 2% to £3.4bn ($5.5bn).

The Nottingham-based firm, which has more than 3,000 stores worldwide, said revenues for the group as a whole rose 6% to £8.9bn.

Alliance Boots is in the process of cutting 900 non-store UK jobs over the next three years.

The company's executive chairman, Stefano Pessina, said the company had made a number of important changes to Boots UK in the past few years.

He said: "We have made substantial capital improvements in Boots in the UK to improve our stores and drive efficiency."

The company said it had extended a partnership with the supermarket chain, Waitrose, whereby each sells certain products within some stores.

It has also launched a partnership with children's clothing chain Mothercare for babies and children up to the age of 6 years old.

Alliance Boots was bought by private equity group Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for £11bn in 2007. Boots and Alliance Unichem had merged a year earlier.

It employs 115,000 people, including some 70,000 in the UK.