Specsavers pays £12m dividend to founders after profits jump

Specsavers has paid £12m to its parent company controlled by its founders Doug and Dame Mary Perkins after the high street optician’s profits increased by more than a quarter.

The group operates nearly 3,000 optometry, audiology and ophthalmology businesses globally in at least eight countries, including more than 1,200 in the UK, through hundreds of independent partners.

Specsavers shared out a payment of almost £258m to these shop owners, up from £239m in the previous year.

It said it had revived paying a dividend to its Perkins-controlled parent, Specsavers International Healthcare Limited, after pre-tax profits rose to £429.7m in the year to this February, while sales increased 7% to £4.3bn.

No dividend was paid to the Guernsey-based parent in the previous year, when Specsavers said it had “paused all dividends” as a one-off “due to economic and political uncertainty and their own significant expansion and investment”. In the two prior years dividends of about £15m were paid.

“The resumption of dividend payments at a level in line with historic amounts reflects the strength of the business and confidence in its future performance,” a spokesperson said. “Importantly, this has been achieved while continuing to invest in the organisation’s long-term growth and their commitment to delivering value for customers.”

Specsavers said sales had risen “as we continue to attract customers to the brand despite a challenging macro-economic landscape”.

According to the accounts, profits rose as the company had strived to keep costs flat and reduced “non-value add activities”.

They said inflation “will continue to present both challenges and opportunity and our regional plans are constantly being reviewed and updated to respond to changing market forces”. The company said it aimed to “absorb inflationary price increases where possible and to avoid passing increased costs on to our customers”.

The group faced inflation on wages, utilities and from supplier costs, as well as increasing regulatory pressure. It is also investing in improving its website as customers increasingly want to mix in-store visits with interacting online.

The Perkinses, whose combined fortune is now calculated at £1.4bn by the Sunday Times rich list, founded Specsavers in 1983. The business was devised at the family table tennis table in Guernsey, and the first stores opened on the island and in the UK the following year.

The couple, now in their 80s, met on their first day at Cardiff University and set up their own opticians when they were in their early 20s.

In the 1960s it was still rare for women to train as opticians, let alone start their own businesses. Mary Perkins was one of four women on her optometry course in a class of 30.