Essilor has confirmed it is to acquire a controlling stake in two formerly independent prescription laboratories.
The move comes after weeks of speculation within the lens industry about a possible number of acquisitions of independent labs by the international lens giants.
Essilor International announced its intention to take an interest in Sinclair Optical Services (England) and United Optical (Northern Ireland).
A statement said both labs would continue to operate as independent companies with their own strategies and continue to offer a broad range of products. The management teams within both companies would also remain in place, and as members of a larger group the two labs would have the potential to tap into financial and technological resources.
Gloucestershire-based Sinclair was set up in 1983 and is a wholesale supplier of optical lenses and frames. It is a national supplier of stock lenses coatings and prescription services. United Optical is based in Belfast and supplies prescription and safety lenses in Northern Ireland. It also has a subsidiary in Southern Ireland supplying the Republic market from Athlone.
Many in the prescription lab business expect to see the same kind of consolidation which has seen large international lens companies acquire smaller labs in the US.
One lens company boss described such moves as 'aggressive and a carefully calculated risk' but speculated labs outside the 'chosen few' could move their business to other suppliers. Other lens firms may have to carefully consider their relationship with any lab that allied itself to a rival lens maker, he said.
A senior lens company executive said he wasn't at all surprised. He expected any lens company that acquired an independent lab to equip it and license out free-form technology software.