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Essilor Moves Forward With Sale Of Stores For GrandVision Deal

By  |  May 31, 2021

EssilorLuxottica is pushing ahead with the sale of some optical retail businesses in Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium to meet antitrust requirements for its purchase of GrandVision, according to people familiar with the situation.

The deal covers some 350 stores that generated about €160 million (US$196 million) of sales before the Covid-19 pandemic, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the process isn’t public.

EssilorLuxottica has hired Mediobanca and Lazard as financial advisers and is holding informal talks with potential buyers, the people said. Representatives for EssilorLuxottica, GrandVision, Mediobanca and Lazard declined to comment.

The EU’s blessing for the €7.3 billion (US$8.7 billion) deal came in March, after a rocky year for EssilorLuxottica, the world’s largest supplier of eyewear. Despite EU approval, the pandemic’s effect on retail and a legal spat with GrandVision led EssilorLuxottica to consider its options, including renegotiating the price or even walking away from the transaction, people familiar with the situation said earlier this year.

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