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Spanish department store El Corte Inglés is selling its Optica 2000 division to the Dutch GrandVision group, which already owns the Pearle and GrandOptical chains. 108 stores in Spain and Portugal are now in Dutch hands.
Optica 2000: profit, but no growth
El Corte Inglés is selling the store to reduce the company’s debts, an offer of which Dutch optical retail giant GrandVision happily takes advantage: the group sells glasses in 44 countries and will now be acquiring Optica 2000 for an undisclosed amount.
Optica 2000 can usually be found in El Corte Inglés department stores. There are two stores in Portugal and 106 in Spain, where the company is based. The chain employs 700 people and generated a turnover of 27.9 million euros in 2017. Despite a net profit of 7 million euros, the chain has hardly grown over the past few years, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Masvisión: growth, but no profit
In that regard, Optica 2000 is the opposite of Masvisión, GrandVision’s Spanish branch. That optical chain has ninety outlets and almost 500 employees and it closed 2017 with a turnover of 39 million euros, double the amount of the previous year, but also making a loss of almost 2 million euros. The chain has not managed to generate a profit in ten years, even though its turnover has nearly quadrupled over that period.
Earlier, Optica 2000 expressed its intention to modernise its store buildings and concepts. That task will now fall to GrandVision, but with the new owner’s stock market value of 5 billion euros bringing the chain back to life should not be too hard. Meanwhile, El Corte Inglés is working on the sale of non-strategic assets and real estate: over the past 18 months, the group sold 500 million euros worth of these.
