Hot growth for Inspecs

Bath-based frame firm Inspecs has moved from 75th to 39th in the Business Week European Hot Growth companies.

The company, set up in 1988 by Robin Totterman and Chris Smith, has more than 600 staff and forecasts revenues of €65m in 2006, up some 24 per cent on 2005, with profits expected to double as well.

Inspecs started out supplying Jean Paul Gaultier eyewear before adding designing and manufacturing capabilities for brands that now range from French Connection Vision to Austin Reed.

The Business Week report said that today Inspecs designers are at work in Britain, Hong Kong and India. The company’s frames sell in many of the world’s top optical chains, as well as Wal-Mart in the US, which recently named Inspecs as a supplier of the year.