MILAN--Luxottica Retail’s
Pearle Vision retail chain will become 74 stores stronger in Canada
once parent Luxottica Group’s pending acquisition of Shoppers
Optical there closes, sometime this month.
The Shoppers Optical locations,
currently owned by Winnipeg-based King Optical Group, will be
converted to the Pearle Vision format once the deal is completed,
according to Luxottica.
The company will pay the equivalent
of approximately 47 million Euros (about $60 million U.S.) to
acquire Shoppers Optical.
Once the transaction is finalized,
Luxottica Group will manage a total of 268 optical stores in
Canada. As of Dec. 31, the company operated 71 LensCrafters and 40
Pearle Vision stores there.
Shoppers Optical operates in eight
Canadian provinces; 26 of its stores are in Ontario, where nearly
40 percent of the country’s population lives, according to
Luxottica.
Said Valerio Giacobbi, executive
vice president of Luxottica Group for North American retail,
“This acquisition, when completed, will allow us to
accelerate our plans to improve coverage of the high-potential U.S.
$1.4 billion Canadian optical retail sector. It will make our group
the leading operator of optical stores in the country and the only
one with full national coverage.”
Giacobbi added, “The profile
of Shoppers Optical’s customers is already extremely similar
to that of our Pearle Vision retail brand.” He said Luxottica
expects Pearle to become “the leading national optical retail
chain in Canada, with a total of 114 stores, and the vehicle for
further growth for our group in this market.”
In addition, this acquisition is
expected to provide Luxottica with the first full-service
Canada-based central lens-finishing lab with anti-reflective
coating capability, an announcement said.
King Optical Group, founded by
Stewart King in 1956, launched the Shoppers Optical chain in
Winnipeg in 1977.
--Cathy Ciccolella