Eyewear retailer GrandVision BV is preparing to listing on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange this year. A 20-25% stake of company’s capital will be sold on the market and global coordinators have been appointed Abn Amro e JPMorgan
GrandVision is controlled by Dutch HAL Holding nv, an investment company listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, which in turn, through HAL Investments bv, controls a 41.86% stake in Italy’s eyewear manufacturer  Safilo. HAL Holding is owned by HAL Trust, the holding company of Dutch wealthy family Van der Vorm.
GrandVision operates 5,600 stores under brands also including Apollo-Optik in Germany, Generale d’Optique in France and Pearle in the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, while in Italy the group owns brands such as Avanzi (183 shops), Solaris (30 shopsi) and Optissimo (101 shops and 89 corner in shopping malls). Optissimo is a recent acquisition: Avanzi Holding actually bought the 100% of Angelo Randazzo srl (the owner of Optissiomo brand)  last December (see a previous post by BeBeez).
As of June 30, HAL had a book value of 2.45 billion euros for GrandVision, meaning a 25 percent stake could be worth more than 600 million euros. KBC Securities analysts said GrandVision could have an enterprise value (equity plus debt) as high as 5.8 billion euros if valued on a similar basis to peers. These include Italy’s Luxottica and Germany’s Fielmann. GrandVision reported an operating profit of 223 million euros on 2.1 billion of sales in the first nine months of 2014 and net debt of 834 million euros.
