LONDON (AP) — Shareholders of Alliance Boots PLC overwhelmingly approved an $11 billion ($21.8 billion) takeover bid from the British pharmacy chain's deputy chairman and a private equity firm yesterday.The company expects the takeover to be complete in July, although deputy chairman Stefano Pessina and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. remain in talks with pension trustees about the funding of the company's pension plan.

Pessina and KKR were forced to raise their offer three times to the final price of 1,139 pence ($22.53) per share to secure their bid for Alliance Boots after a consortium led by financier Guy Hands and Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. launched a rival bid.

Some 96 percent of shareholders voted in favour of the deal, the company said.

Alliance Boots, formed last year in a combination of drug distributor Alliance Unichem PLC and retail chain Boots Group PLC, has around 3,000 Boots drugstores in Britain, seven other European countries and Thailand.