The owner of internet delivery firm Glasses Direct has appointed advisers to look at options that could include floating shares on the London Stock Exchange.
The MyOptique group has appointed specialist technology advisers GP Bullhound to look at future strategic and fundraising options, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
The advisory firm is among the most active in the digital sector and also worked on deals including the sale of music streaming service We7 to Tesco and Figleaves to N Brown in 2010, the report said. It includes former UBM chief executive Lord Hollick among its partners.
Glasses Direct was founded by Jamie Murray Wells in 2004 while still at university. It has already raised £32 million from a series of funding rounds that have included Index Ventures and Highland Capital Partners.
The Telegraph said in the year to April sales were £29.9 million with profit on an ebitda basis of £171,000. A float would hope to value the business at two to three times revenue, the newspaper said.
The firm has hired headhunters at Egon Zehnder to consider potential non-executive chairman to replace Murray Wells should the float, probably on the aim market next year, go ahead. Murray Wells, a friend of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, remains the most significant individual investor in the company.
The group, which also includes hearing aid site HearingDirect.com, shops 2,000 orders a day, employs 140 staff and has web sites in 10 languages across Europe, North America and Australia. It also includes the MyOptique brand, the SunglassesShop and Scandinavian contact lens supplier LensOn.
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