Dutch trade magazine Eyeline recently published an interview with employees of Dutch optical chain/formula Het Huis in which they announced serious new plans. According to the interview Het Huis will launch a campaign to find more stores for the formula. Interesting “usp” was or is the guarantee for new members that Het Huis will purchase their store once they want to retire. Remarkable enough the interview did not mention anything about a possible purchase of Het Huis although insiders knew for sometimes already negotiations with HAL/BRILMIJ were on its way. Last week HAL officially announced the acquisition. We are a little bit surprised by the published figures which you can find everywhere on internet now. Het Huis has 89 own stores and still 19 independent opticians which use the formula. Sales are mentioned to be 33 million euro which means slightly more as 300.000 euro per store or, if we assume this is the turnover of the own stores only, still not more as 370.000 euro per store which is really not much for a good Dutch optical outlet. Het Huis realizes these sales with 350 people which means less as 100.000 euro per employee. Once again quite surprising. Maybe the figures are not accurate. Fact is HAL/BRILMIJ did the acquisition and are now waiting for approval by the authorities. Once they got it the group has another major chain next to the existing Pearle and Eyewish stores and owns about 25% of all Dutch optical stores. Interesting to see what the current independent members of Het Huis will do and whether the formula will attract new members now that it is owned by HAL/BRILMIJ. To be continued!
