When HAL, earlier this year, announced to investigate a possible IPO, it already created some turbulence in the financial world resulting in a lot of interesting publications like the one in the Dutch Financial Daily. Now that the investment company has definitely decided to a partial IPO, it is even more interesting. All publications show that investors still have a lot of trust in the optical branch and expect this IPO to become very successful. Just like anyone else in this industry GrandVision profits from the growing amount of elder people in Europe and of the more or less safe position of optical branch with relatively few stores which all need qualified employees. In addition the group owns a lot of stores in emerging economies like in South-America where it recently bought another two chains and where a growing group of consumers can afford itself a nice pair of glasses. The half-year figures published last week confirm this. Even in less favourite economic circumstances sales of the optical stores owned by HAL increased in the first half of 2014 with 5,2% to 1,4 billion euro. Operating results increased to 170 million euro. Like-for-like the stores increased sales with 3,9%. Based on these figures experts estimate the worth of the company at 5 to 6 billion euro. Interesting to see what it will really be after the IPO and who will buy these 20 to 25% of the shares. The story anyway shows that the optical business is still alive and booming which is good news for everyone involved in this industry.
Watch also on: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/home/brillenketens-naar-de-beurs-een-groeiende-business
