Alliance Boots is to complete its mega merger with America's Walgreens by the end of the year.
The deal is expected to complete ahead of schedule on December 31 after a special Walgreens shareholder meeting in New York today. It was previously expected to be wrapped up by February.
Walgreens shareholders today approved all the proposals related to the Alliance Boots deal. 97% of the votes cast were in favour of the deal, the company added.
It was announced in August that the US firm would take full control of the Boots the Chemist owner in a £9 billion cash and shares deal to swallow up the 55% of the company it did not already own.
The new group, Walgreens Boots Alliance, will be based in Chicago but the headquarters of Boots will remain in Nottingham.
Walgreens has said a programme of cost-cutting would target $1 billion (£600m) of savings by 2017.
Chief executive Greg Wasson today said it had completed financing to close the deal ahead of the original goal.
Mr Wasson, who is to step down once the tie-up is complete, said: "This truly is an extraordinary time for Walgreens as we achieve our vision of becoming a pharmacy-led, global enterprise for health and wellbeing with Alliance Boots".
Alliance Boots' executive chairman Stefano Pessina will serve as acting boss of the group until a successor is found.
Walgreens runs more than 8,000 drugstores in the US, where it also trades as Duane Reade.
Alliance Boots employs more than 108,000 staff in more than 25 countries, and has several stores in Ireland.
Walgreens bought a 45% stake in Alliance Boots for $6.7 billion in 2012, with the option to buy the rest by August 2015, and has decided to exercise the option early.
The latest transaction will reportedly net a £1.5 billion windfall for Mr Pessina, who took Alliance Boots private, with private equity firm KKR, in an £11.1 billion deal in 2007.
Walgreens has said the merger would create a global leader in "pharmacy-led health and well-being retail" with more than 11,000 stores in 10 countries.
Alliance Boots traces its roots back to 1849 when John Boot opened his first store selling herbal remedies in Goose Gate, Nottingham. It opened its 1,000th store in 1933 followed by the No7 cosmetics range two years later.
Boots Group merged with Alliance UniChem to form Alliance Boots in 2006 before it was taken private in Europe's largest leveraged buyout a year later.
