// Specsavers founders have placed the company in a family trust
// The move is a cautionary measure to avoid the company being sold to private equity firms
Specsavers’ founders Dame Mary and Doug Perkins have put the business in a family trust as part of a cautionary measure to avoid the business being sold to private equity in the future.
Founder and executive board member Mary Perkins told The Times: “We are coming up to our 80th birthdays so we have to be sensible and think about how we want it to progress after we have gone.
“It is not going to get sold to some private equity firm when we pop our clogs, which I don’t intend doing for a long time.”
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The pair’s children have worked at the business with son John Perkins currently chief executive of Specsavers.
Mary Perkins said she told the next generation of the family, her seven grandchildren – two of which already work for the business, before Christmas of her wishes for the business. She told them she wanted Specsavers to “go on and on for ever”.
The husband-and-wife team set up Specsavers in the mid-1980s, which has grown to almost 2,300 shops.
The group reported that sales had surged 25% to £3.4 billion in the 12 months to February last year as profits climbed £446 million.
Despite the strong financial performance, the group’s strategic report warned it could soon face “significant cost headwinds” from rising energy prices, materials and employment costs.
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