Medicine man

'I really enjoy business,' David Moulsdale tells me. After 13 years at the helm of one of the UK's largest opticians his enthusiasm remains undiminished. 'It's challenging, rewarding, interesting, fulfilling,' he says in his Cumbernauld head office. 'You're dealing with many different situations at one time.'
Right now he's keen to maintain his reputation for being one of the most voracious purchasers of opticians' businesses. 'We are interested in further significant acquisitions, from individual stores to international organisations,' says Moulsdale, who claims his business is 8 per cent ahead in 2003/4.
A large map on the wall behind him Ð dotted with 164 pins, each representing one of his outlets Ð shows the UK progress to date. The latest aim is to open his first outlet in Ireland and establish a laser clinic in Dublin.
As we discuss his business further it is clear that his appetite for acquisition remains exceptionally healthy. 'There are still huge gaps on the map,' he concedes, looking up from his desk. He wants expansion into South Wales, the north of England and Northern Ireland. 'We have tried to purchase a group there,' he says of Ulster, 'but the expectations of the owners were too high. The transaction never happened.'

Plugging the gaps
As ever he's impatient for the Optical Express business to grow, and although he acknowledges there is a 'good concentration' of stores within the M25, outside its immediate vicinity he does not have what he calls 'critical mass'.
'We don't have the economies of scale for advertising and marketing we would like. Because of the distance between some of the stores the regional managers have a lot of distance to do. What we'd like to do is increase the number of stores in the gaps.'
Not surprisingly, he's happier with the representation of Optical Express in Britain's largest cities following his 2002 acquisition of the Health Clinic.
The Health Clinic remains the most headline grabbing of his recent deals. The £7.5m purchase out of administration provided the most eye-catching twist in the Optical Express story to date with the chain's expansion into laser eye surgery. Moulsdale says he'd been tracking the plc for sometime and had wanted to add the 20-outlet group to Optical Express long before it famously crashed.
He recalls how the deal was finalised with his team after many hours of negotiations during the early hours in the London offices of one of the accountants involved. 'We then we drove through the night to the Newcastle store to see it open on the Saturday morning.'
He was delighted to complete the deal, especially the five 'core' optical branches. 'They had established fantastic stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Shaftesbury Avenue, and in Manchester and Leeds.
'Those five businesses were the cornerstones of what we bought when we acquired the 20 Eye Clinics. That's really what we were paying the money for. Our strategy was always to buy the entire business and work hard at making all the individual outlets contribute to the group.
'We knew it was going to take time, but what we really paid the money for was those profitable, solid and stable five clinics. Other clinics are now significantly profitable and we're delighted with them.'
Looking back, his view is that the Health Clinic's entry into alternative health therapies, added to its optical interests, was partly to blame for the collapse of the plc's financial empire. 'The Eye Clinic was really a fantasy and a dream Ð if you were to describe it as a car it had a very polished exterior, and looked very sexy, but with no engine, gearbox, brakes, or mechanics whatsoever.'
When it crashed, Moulsdale says, it was losing £1.5m a month. He soon discovered, however, Optical Express was not the only high-profile bidder for the business. Early in negotiations, Moulsdale was told by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that in administration the Health Clinic had attracted other groups who had pledged 'much bigger numbers than us'.
Nevertheless, it was the consistent approach by Moulsdale and his team which won the day. He said the four crucial ingredients which swung the deal his way were 'the speed in which we went about our business, the consistency of approach, albeit not at a price level that they [the administrators] wanted to accept, the certainty we had the money and that we were happy to take all of the business'.
So what kind of business attracts his attention? Is there a typical Moulsdale acquisition, a formula for an acquisition? 'I think it would be unlikely for us to acquire a business that was maximising its performance, because it's always going to be a very tough challenge for us to add any value,' he says.
'We like businesses that are underperforming within this sector. By a combination of integrating their head office with ours, or improving the buying margin, or by motivating and enthusing the staff, or by bring the marketing budgets together we can succeed. Where there are synergies and benefits in bringing two businesses together, we're interested in talking.'

Road to recovery
Co-op Eyecare was underperforming (because of low staff morale, Moulsdale claims), so too the Health Clinic. After the latter's £65m flotation in 2000 its finances unravelled within two years; pre-tax losses of £800,000 followed rapid expansion, with an accountancy review of £2.3m in costs related to its laser refractive business to boot.
Moulsdale's medicine is to coax the ailing finances back to life with a combination of focusing on improved selling, beneficial cost cuttings, and inspirational management. Co-op Eyecare went through the process in 2001, improving sales by 30 per cent in the first year as Optical Express practices.
How was this achieved? A new, less-restrictive product mix, specific to each store's demographic location, was put in place 'from day one'; unfavoured IT systems were replaced, and top Optical Express managers were assigned so they 'in effect do a hand-holding exercise' with the Co-op teams for the first fortnight to show the incumbents 'our way of interacting with the customer'.
'Of course we didn't see 30 per cent year after year,' he concedes, 'but sales growth has been maintained. When we look at a company we have strict parameters, and a strategy, and I have a very good team which helps.'
His team has looked at 28 businesses so far, and achieved eight acquisitions, and are looking at others now.
His energy is currently partly employed promoting laser eye treatment Ð his sister and other close friends are to have the procedure. He proudly says he is allowing a wider public access to the surgery through a £600 per eye price point at high street clinics.
'It's in line with the Government's policy on health care and well being, and trying to make surgical procedures and enhancements to people's quality of life at a price that people can afford,' he says. 'Lots of people can't afford the higher prices for treatment, but many can afford £600.'
The lifeblood to the success of the refractive sector is good word of mouth he says, so there is no place in the profession for any compromise of clinical standards. To keep track of the minutiae of his burgeoning business he is currently investing heavily in IT systems, including a web-based patient booking scheme, £500,000 on technology to measure customer 'traffic flow' and an electronic internal record of seemingly everything from patient records and product dispatches to staff holiday requests.
'No more faxing records of a prospective laser patient, based in Aberdeen to our Glasgow clinic,' he explains, 'but instant, on-screen details of what the optometrist has said.'
Moulsdale is currently overseeing a recruitment, retention and development programme, and says the company is headhunting the best people in the optical business. He claims Optical Express has recruited a dozen people from competitors in the last six weeks.
Were they attracted by big bucks? 'It's not necessary offering people an open cheque book,' he says. 'It's more a career development opportunity, working with an organisation that is heavily investing in its own future, and is young and vibrant with a forward-thinking, fast paced approach, not stuck in its ways and having layers and layers of bureaucracy.'
Layers of bureaucracy will be the last thing on the minds of the 400 Optical Express managers, optometrists and best performing other staff who will be treated to four days in Spain shortly. Two trips will take Moulsdale's key personnel on another team-building sojourn to Palma in a return visit after last year's successful combination of company philosophy and fun.
'In 2003 we had workshops from Ciba Vision, Pentax, Ocular Sciences, Luxottica and Essilor,' he says. 'This time it'll be more of the same. We'll go through the business's performance, review the year that's been, see our biggest challenges, and set out our business objectives for the year ahead.'
Then its back to Scotland and a long-held appointment with Scotland's RNIB in his capacity as chairman of its new appeal. He is helping to open an Edinburgh rehabilitation centre funded by £1.5m of donations from Optical Express staff together with contributions from charity auctions and Moulsdale himself.
Elsewhere, Moulsdale feels it is necessary for him to be more active within the profession as he is in charge of Britain's largest privately owned opticians.
'Specsavers could say they're the largest but I think that they are a combination of 500 individual companies,' he says with a smile. 'We've gone from nowhere in the space of 13 years from one store to being the largest privately owned optical group in the UK and we haven't even started yet.' 'I really enjoy business,' David Moulsdale tells me. After 13 years at the helm of one of the UK's largest opticians his enthusiasm remains undiminished. 'It's challenging, rewarding, interesting, fulfilling,' he says in his Cumbernauld head office. 'You're dealing with many different situations at one time.'
Right now he's keen to maintain his reputation for being one of the most voracious purchasers of opticians' businesses. 'We are interested in further significant acquisitions, from individual stores to international organisations,' says Moulsdale, who claims his business is 8 per cent ahead in 2003/4.
A large map on the wall behind him Ð dotted with 164 pins, each representing one of his outlets Ð shows the UK progress to date. The latest aim is to open his first outlet in Ireland and establish a laser clinic in Dublin.
As we discuss his business further it is clear that his appetite for acquisition remains exceptionally healthy. 'There are still huge gaps on the map,' he concedes, looking up from his desk. He wants expansion into South Wales, the north of England and Northern Ireland. 'We have tried to purchase a group there,' he says of Ulster, 'but the expectations of the owners were too high. The transaction never happened.'

Plugging the gaps
As ever he's impatient for the Optical Express business to grow, and although he acknowledges there is a 'good concentration' of stores within the M25, outside its immediate vicinity he does not have what he calls 'critical mass'.
'We don't have the economies of scale for advertising and marketing we would like. Because of the distance between some of the stores the regional managers have a lot of distance to do. What we'd like to do is increase the number of stores in the gaps.'
Not surprisingly, he's happier with the representation of Optical Express in Britain's largest cities following his 2002 acquisition of the Health Clinic.
The Health Clinic remains the most headline grabbing of his recent deals. The £7.5m purchase out of administration provided the most eye-catching twist in the Optical Express story to date with the chain's expansion into laser eye surgery. Moulsdale says he'd been tracking the plc for sometime and had wanted to add the 20-outlet group to Optical Express long before it famously crashed.
He recalls how the deal was finalised with his team after many hours of negotiations during the early hours in the London offices of one of the accountants involved. 'We then we drove through the night to the Newcastle store to see it open on the Saturday morning.'
He was delighted to complete the deal, especially the five 'core' optical branches. 'They had established fantastic stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Shaftesbury Avenue, and in Manchester and Leeds.
'Those five businesses were the cornerstones of what we bought when we acquired the 20 Eye Clinics. That's really what we were paying the money for. Our strategy was always to buy the entire business and work hard at making all the individual outlets contribute to the group.
'We knew it was going to take time, but what we really paid the money for was those profitable, solid and stable five clinics. Other clinics are now significantly profitable and we're delighted with them.'
Looking back, his view is that the Health Clinic's entry into alternative health therapies, added to its optical interests, was partly to blame for the collapse of the plc's financial empire. 'The Eye Clinic was really a fantasy and a dream Ð if you were to describe it as a car it had a very polished exterior, and looked very sexy, but with no engine, gearbox, brakes, or mechanics whatsoever.'
When it crashed, Moulsdale says, it was losing £1.5m a month. He soon discovered, however, Optical Express was not the only high-profile bidder for the business. Early in negotiations, Moulsdale was told by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that in administration the Health Clinic had attracted other groups who had pledged 'much bigger numbers than us'.
Nevertheless, it was the consistent approach by Moulsdale and his team which won the day. He said the four crucial ingredients which swung the deal his way were 'the speed in which we went about our business, the consistency of approach, albeit not at a price level that they [the administrators] wanted to accept, the certainty we had the money and that we were happy to take all of the business'.
So what kind of business attracts his attention? Is there a typical Moulsdale acquisition, a formula for an acquisition? 'I think it would be unlikely for us to acquire a business that was maximising its performance, because it's always going to be a very tough challenge for us to add any value,' he says.
'We like businesses that are underperforming within this sector. By a combination of integrating their head office with ours, or improving the buying margin, or by motivating and enthusing the staff, or by bring the marketing budgets together we can succeed. Where there are synergies and benefits in bringing two businesses together, we're interested in talking.'

Road to recovery
Co-op Eyecare was underperforming (because of low staff morale, Moulsdale claims), so too the Health Clinic. After the latter's £65m flotation in 2000 its finances unravelled within two years; pre-tax losses of £800,000 followed rapid expansion, with an accountancy review of £2.3m in costs related to its laser refractive business to boot.
Moulsdale's medicine is to coax the ailing finances back to life with a combination of focusing on improved selling, beneficial cost cuttings, and inspirational management. Co-op Eyecare went through the process in 2001, improving sales by 30 per cent in the first year as Optical Express practices.
How was this achieved? A new, less-restrictive product mix, specific to each store's demographic location, was put in place 'from day one'; unfavoured IT systems were replaced, and top Optical Express managers were assigned so they 'in effect do a hand-holding exercise' with the Co-op teams for the first fortnight to show the incumbents 'our way of interacting with the customer'.
'Of course we didn't see 30 per cent year after year,' he concedes, 'but sales growth has been maintained. When we look at a company we have strict parameters, and a strategy, and I have a very good team which helps.'
His team has looked at 28 businesses so far, and achieved eight acquisitions, and are looking at others now.
His energy is currently partly employed promoting laser eye treatment Ð his sister and other close friends are to have the procedure. He proudly says he is allowing a wider public access to the surgery through a £600 per eye price point at high street clinics.
'It's in line with the Government's policy on health care and well being, and trying to make surgical procedures and enhancements to people's quality of life at a price that people can afford,' he says. 'Lots of people can't afford the higher prices for treatment, but many can afford £600.'
The lifeblood to the success of the refractive sector is good word of mouth he says, so there is no place in the profession for any compromise of clinical standards. To keep track of the minutiae of his burgeoning business he is currently investing heavily in IT systems, including a web-based patient booking scheme, £500,000 on technology to measure customer 'traffic flow' and an electronic internal record of seemingly everything from patient records and product dispatches to staff holiday requests.
'No more faxing records of a prospective laser patient, based in Aberdeen to our Glasgow clinic,' he explains, 'but instant, on-screen details of what the optometrist has said.'
Moulsdale is currently overseeing a recruitment, retention and development programme, and says the company is headhunting the best people in the optical business. He claims Optical Express has recruited a dozen people from competitors in the last six weeks.
Were they attracted by big bucks? 'It's not necessary offering people an open cheque book,' he says. 'It's more a career development opportunity, working with an organisation that is heavily investing in its own future, and is young and vibrant with a forward-thinking, fast paced approach, not stuck in its ways and having layers and layers of bureaucracy.'
Layers of bureaucracy will be the last thing on the minds of the 400 Optical Express managers, optometrists and best performing other staff who will be treated to four days in Spain shortly. Two trips will take Moulsdale's key personnel on another team-building sojourn to Palma in a return visit after last year's successful combination of company philosophy and fun.
'In 2003 we had workshops from Ciba Vision, Pentax, Ocular Sciences, Luxottica and Essilor,' he says. 'This time it'll be more of the same. We'll go through the business's performance, review the year that's been, see our biggest challenges, and set out our business objectives for the year ahead.'
Then its back to Scotland and a long-held appointment with Scotland's RNIB in his capacity as chairman of its new appeal. He is helping to open an Edinburgh rehabilitation centre funded by £1.5m of donations from Optical Express staff together with contributions from charity auctions and Moulsdale himself.
Elsewhere, Moulsdale feels it is necessary for him to be more active within the profession as he is in charge of Britain's largest privately owned opticians.
'Specsavers could say they're the largest but I think that they are a combination of 500 individual companies,' he says with a smile. 'We've gone from nowhere in the space of 13 years from one store to being the largest privately owned optical group in the UK and we haven't even started yet.' 'I really enjoy business,' David Moulsdale tells me. After 13 years at the helm of one of the UK's largest opticians his enthusiasm remains undiminished. 'It's challenging, rewarding, interesting, fulfilling,' he says in his Cumbernauld head office. 'You're dealing with many different situations at one time.'
Right now he's keen to maintain his reputation for being one of the most voracious purchasers of opticians' businesses. 'We are interested in further significant acquisitions, from individual stores to international organisations,' says Moulsdale, who claims his business is 8 per cent ahead in 2003/4.
A large map on the wall behind him Ð dotted with 164 pins, each representing one of his outlets Ð shows the UK progress to date. The latest aim is to open his first outlet in Ireland and establish a laser clinic in Dublin.
As we discuss his business further it is clear that his appetite for acquisition remains exceptionally healthy. 'There are still huge gaps on the map,' he concedes, looking up from his desk. He wants expansion into South Wales, the north of England and Northern Ireland. 'We have tried to purchase a group there,' he says of Ulster, 'but the expectations of the owners were too high. The transaction never happened.'

Plugging the gaps
As ever he's impatient for the Optical Express business to grow, and although he acknowledges there is a 'good concentration' of stores within the M25, outside its immediate vicinity he does not have what he calls 'critical mass'.
'We don't have the economies of scale for advertising and marketing we would like. Because of the distance between some of the stores the regional managers have a lot of distance to do. What we'd like to do is increase the number of stores in the gaps.'
Not surprisingly, he's happier with the representation of Optical Express in Britain's largest cities following his 2002 acquisition of the Health Clinic.
The Health Clinic remains the most headline grabbing of his recent deals. The £7.5m purchase out of administration provided the most eye-catching twist in the Optical Express story to date with the chain's expansion into laser eye surgery. Moulsdale says he'd been tracking the plc for sometime and had wanted to add the 20-outlet group to Optical Express long before it famously crashed.
He recalls how the deal was finalised with his team after many hours of negotiations during the early hours in the London offices of one of the accountants involved. 'We then we drove through the night to the Newcastle store to see it open on the Saturday morning.'
He was delighted to complete the deal, especially the five 'core' optical branches. 'They had established fantastic stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Shaftesbury Avenue, and in Manchester and Leeds.
'Those five businesses were the cornerstones of what we bought when we acquired the 20 Eye Clinics. That's really what we were paying the money for. Our strategy was always to buy the entire business and work hard at making all the individual outlets contribute to the group.
'We knew it was going to take time, but what we really paid the money for was those profitable, solid and stable five clinics. Other clinics are now significantly profitable and we're delighted with them.'
Looking back, his view is that the Health Clinic's entry into alternative health therapies, added to its optical interests, was partly to blame for the collapse of the plc's financial empire. 'The Eye Clinic was really a fantasy and a dream Ð if you were to describe it as a car it had a very polished exterior, and looked very sexy, but with no engine, gearbox, brakes, or mechanics whatsoever.'
When it crashed, Moulsdale says, it was losing £1.5m a month. He soon discovered, however, Optical Express was not the only high-profile bidder for the business. Early in negotiations, Moulsdale was told by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that in administration the Health Clinic had attracted other groups who had pledged 'much bigger numbers than us'.
Nevertheless, it was the consistent approach by Moulsdale and his team which won the day. He said the four crucial ingredients which swung the deal his way were 'the speed in which we went about our business, the consistency of approach, albeit not at a price level that they [the administrators] wanted to accept, the certainty we had the money and that we were happy to take all of the business'.
So what kind of business attracts his attention? Is there a typical Moulsdale acquisition, a formula for an acquisition? 'I think it would be unlikely for us to acquire a business that was maximising its performance, because it's always going to be a very tough challenge for us to add any value,' he says.
'We like businesses that are underperforming within this sector. By a combination of integrating their head office with ours, or improving the buying margin, or by motivating and enthusing the staff, or by bring the marketing budgets together we can succeed. Where there are synergies and benefits in bringing two businesses together, we're interested in talking.'

Road to recovery
Co-op Eyecare was underperforming (because of low staff morale, Moulsdale claims), so too the Health Clinic. After the latter's £65m flotation in 2000 its finances unravelled within two years; pre-tax losses of £800,000 followed rapid expansion, with an accountancy review of £2.3m in costs related to its laser refractive business to boot.
Moulsdale's medicine is to coax the ailing finances back to life with a combination of focusing on improved selling, beneficial cost cuttings, and inspirational management. Co-op Eyecare went through the process in 2001, improving sales by 30 per cent in the first year as Optical Express practices.
How was this achieved? A new, less-restrictive product mix, specific to each store's demographic location, was put in place 'from day one'; unfavoured IT systems were replaced, and top Optical Express managers were assigned so they 'in effect do a hand-holding exercise' with the Co-op teams for the first fortnight to show the incumbents 'our way of interacting with the customer'.
'Of course we didn't see 30 per cent year after year,' he concedes, 'but sales growth has been maintained. When we look at a company we have strict parameters, and a strategy, and I have a very good team which helps.'
His team has looked at 28 businesses so far, and achieved eight acquisitions, and are looking at others now.
His energy is currently partly employed promoting laser eye treatment Ð his sister and other close friends are to have the procedure. He proudly says he is allowing a wider public access to the surgery through a £600 per eye price point at high street clinics.
'It's in line with the Government's policy on health care and well being, and trying to make surgical procedures and enhancements to people's quality of life at a price that people can afford,' he says. 'Lots of people can't afford the higher prices for treatment, but many can afford £600.'
The lifeblood to the success of the refractive sector is good word of mouth he says, so there is no place in the profession for any compromise of clinical standards. To keep track of the minutiae of his burgeoning business he is currently investing heavily in IT systems, including a web-based patient booking scheme, £500,000 on technology to measure customer 'traffic flow' and an electronic internal record of seemingly everything from patient records and product dispatches to staff holiday requests.
'No more faxing records of a prospective laser patient, based in Aberdeen to our Glasgow clinic,' he explains, 'but instant, on-screen details of what the optometrist has said.'
Moulsdale is currently overseeing a recruitment, retention and development programme, and says the company is headhunting the best people in the optical business. He claims Optical Express has recruited a dozen people from competitors in the last six weeks.
Were they attracted by big bucks? 'It's not necessary offering people an open cheque book,' he says. 'It's more a career development opportunity, working with an organisation that is heavily investing in its own future, and is young and vibrant with a forward-thinking, fast paced approach, not stuck in its ways and having layers and layers of bureaucracy.'
Layers of bureaucracy will be the last thing on the minds of the 400 Optical Express managers, optometrists and best performing other staff who will be treated to four days in Spain shortly. Two trips will take Moulsdale's key personnel on another team-building sojourn to Palma in a return visit after last year's successful combination of company philosophy and fun.
'In 2003 we had workshops from Ciba Vision, Pentax, Ocular Sciences, Luxottica and Essilor,' he says. 'This time it'll be more of the same. We'll go through the business's performance, review the year that's been, see our biggest challenges, and set out our business objectives for the year ahead.'
Then its back to Scotland and a long-held appointment with Scotland's RNIB in his capacity as chairman of its new appeal. He is helping to open an Edinburgh rehabilitation centre funded by £1.5m of donations from Optical Express staff together with contributions from charity auctions and Moulsdale himself.
Elsewhere, Moulsdale feels it is necessary for him to be more active within the profession as he is in charge of Britain's largest privately owned opticians.
'Specsavers could say they're the largest but I think that they are a combination of 500 individual companies,' he says with a smile. 'We've gone from nowhere in the space of 13 years from one store to being the largest privately owned optical group in the UK and we haven't even started yet.' 'I really enjoy business,' David Moulsdale tells me. After 13 years at the helm of one of the UK's largest opticians his enthusiasm remains undiminished. 'It's challenging, rewarding, interesting, fulfilling,' he says in his Cumbernauld head office. 'You're dealing with many different situations at one time.'
Right now he's keen to maintain his reputation for being one of the most voracious purchasers of opticians' businesses. 'We are interested in further significant acquisitions, from individual stores to international organisations,' says Moulsdale, who claims his business is 8 per cent ahead in 2003/4.
A large map on the wall behind him Ð dotted with 164 pins, each representing one of his outlets Ð shows the UK progress to date. The latest aim is to open his first outlet in Ireland and establish a laser clinic in Dublin.
As we discuss his business further it is clear that his appetite for acquisition remains exceptionally healthy. 'There are still huge gaps on the map,' he concedes, looking up from his desk. He wants expansion into South Wales, the north of England and Northern Ireland. 'We have tried to purchase a group there,' he says of Ulster, 'but the expectations of the owners were too high. The transaction never happened.'

Plugging the gaps
As ever he's impatient for the Optical Express business to grow, and although he acknowledges there is a 'good concentration' of stores within the M25, outside its immediate vicinity he does not have what he calls 'critical mass'.
'We don't have the economies of scale for advertising and marketing we would like. Because of the distance between some of the stores the regional managers have a lot of distance to do. What we'd like to do is increase the number of stores in the gaps.'
Not surprisingly, he's happier with the representation of Optical Express in Britain's largest cities following his 2002 acquisition of the Health Clinic.
The Health Clinic remains the most headline grabbing of his recent deals. The £7.5m purchase out of administration provided the most eye-catching twist in the Optical Express story to date with the chain's expansion into laser eye surgery. Moulsdale says he'd been tracking the plc for sometime and had wanted to add the 20-outlet group to Optical Express long before it famously crashed.
He recalls how the deal was finalised with his team after many hours of negotiations during the early hours in the London offices of one of the accountants involved. 'We then we drove through the night to the Newcastle store to see it open on the Saturday morning.'
He was delighted to complete the deal, especially the five 'core' optical branches. 'They had established fantastic stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Shaftesbury Avenue, and in Manchester and Leeds.
'Those five businesses were the cornerstones of what we bought when we acquired the 20 Eye Clinics. That's really what we were paying the money for. Our strategy was always to buy the entire business and work hard at making all the individual outlets contribute to the group.
'We knew it was going to take time, but what we really paid the money for was those profitable, solid and stable five clinics. Other clinics are now significantly profitable and we're delighted with them.'
Looking back, his view is that the Health Clinic's entry into alternative health therapies, added to its optical interests, was partly to blame for the collapse of the plc's financial empire. 'The Eye Clinic was really a fantasy and a dream Ð if you were to describe it as a car it had a very polished exterior, and looked very sexy, but with no engine, gearbox, brakes, or mechanics whatsoever.'
When it crashed, Moulsdale says, it was losing £1.5m a month. He soon discovered, however, Optical Express was not the only high-profile bidder for the business. Early in negotiations, Moulsdale was told by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that in administration the Health Clinic had attracted other groups who had pledged 'much bigger numbers than us'.
Nevertheless, it was the consistent approach by Moulsdale and his team which won the day. He said the four crucial ingredients which swung the deal his way were 'the speed in which we went about our business, the consistency of approach, albeit not at a price level that they [the administrators] wanted to accept, the certainty we had the money and that we were happy to take all of the business'.
So what kind of business attracts his attention? Is there a typical Moulsdale acquisition, a formula for an acquisition? 'I think it would be unlikely for us to acquire a business that was maximising its performance, because it's always going to be a very tough challenge for us to add any value,' he says.
'We like businesses that are underperforming within this sector. By a combination of integrating their head office with ours, or improving the buying margin, or by motivating and enthusing the staff, or by bring the marketing budgets together we can succeed. Where there are synergies and benefits in bringing two businesses together, we're interested in talking.'

Road to recovery
Co-op Eyecare was underperforming (because of low staff morale, Moulsdale claims), so too the Health Clinic. After the latter's £65m flotation in 2000 its finances unravelled within two years; pre-tax losses of £800,000 followed rapid expansion, with an accountancy review of £2.3m in costs related to its laser refractive business to boot.
Moulsdale's medicine is to coax the ailing finances back to life with a combination of focusing on improved selling, beneficial cost cuttings, and inspirational management. Co-op Eyecare went through the process in 2001, improving sales by 30 per cent in the first year as Optical Express practices.
How was this achieved? A new, less-restrictive product mix, specific to each store's demographic location, was put in place 'from day one'; unfavoured IT systems were replaced, and top Optical Express managers were assigned so they 'in effect do a hand-holding exercise' with the Co-op teams for the first fortnight to show the incumbents 'our way of interacting with the customer'.
'Of course we didn't see 30 per cent year after year,' he concedes, 'but sales growth has been maintained. When we look at a company we have strict parameters, and a strategy, and I have a very good team which helps.'
His team has looked at 28 businesses so far, and achieved eight acquisitions, and are looking at others now.
His energy is currently partly employed promoting laser eye treatment Ð his sister and other close friends are to have the procedure. He proudly says he is allowing a wider public access to the surgery through a £600 per eye price point at high street clinics.
'It's in line with the Government's policy on health care and well being, and trying to make surgical procedures and enhancements to people's quality of life at a price that people can afford,' he says. 'Lots of people can't afford the higher prices for treatment, but many can afford £600.'
The lifeblood to the success of the refractive sector is good word of mouth he says, so there is no place in the profession for any compromise of clinical standards. To keep track of the minutiae of his burgeoning business he is currently investing heavily in IT systems, including a web-based patient booking scheme, £500,000 on technology to measure customer 'traffic flow' and an electronic internal record of seemingly everything from patient records and product dispatches to staff holiday requests.
'No more faxing records of a prospective laser patient, based in Aberdeen to our Glasgow clinic,' he explains, 'but instant, on-screen details of what the optometrist has said.'
Moulsdale is currently overseeing a recruitment, retention and development programme, and says the company is headhunting the best people in the optical business. He claims Optical Express has recruited a dozen people from competitors in the last six weeks.
Were they attracted by big bucks? 'It's not necessary offering people an open cheque book,' he says. 'It's more a career development opportunity, working with an organisation that is heavily investing in its own future, and is young and vibrant with a forward-thinking, fast paced approach, not stuck in its ways and having layers and layers of bureaucracy.'
Layers of bureaucracy will be the last thing on the minds of the 400 Optical Express managers, optometrists and best performing other staff who will be treated to four days in Spain shortly. Two trips will take Moulsdale's key personnel on another team-building sojourn to Palma in a return visit after last year's successful combination of company philosophy and fun.
'In 2003 we had workshops from Ciba Vision, Pentax, Ocular Sciences, Luxottica and Essilor,' he says. 'This time it'll be more of the same. We'll go through the business's performance, review the year that's been, see our biggest challenges, and set out our business objectives for the year ahead.'
Then its back to Scotland and a long-held appointment with Scotland's RNIB in his capacity as chairman of its new appeal. He is helping to open an Edinburgh rehabilitation centre funded by £1.5m of donations from Optical Express staff together with contributions from charity auctions and Moulsdale himself.
Elsewhere, Moulsdale feels it is necessary for him to be more active within the profession as he is in charge of Britain's largest privately owned opticians.
'Specsavers could say they're the largest but I think that they are a combination of 500 individual companies,' he says with a smile. 'We've gone from nowhere in the space of 13 years from one store to being the largest privately owned optical group in the UK and we haven't even started yet.' 'I really enjoy business,' David Moulsdale tells me. After 13 years at the helm of one of the UK's largest opticians his enthusiasm remains undiminished. 'It's challenging, rewarding, interesting, fulfilling,' he says in his Cumbernauld head office. 'You're dealing with many different situations at one time.'
Right now he's keen to maintain his reputation for being one of the most voracious purchasers of opticians' businesses. 'We are interested in further significant acquisitions, from individual stores to international organisations,' says Moulsdale, who claims his business is 8 per cent ahead in 2003/4.
A large map on the wall behind him Ð dotted with 164 pins, each representing one of his outlets Ð shows the UK progress to date. The latest aim is to open his first outlet in Ireland and establish a laser clinic in Dublin.
As we discuss his business further it is clear that his appetite for acquisition remains exceptionally healthy. 'There are still huge gaps on the map,' he concedes, looking up from his desk. He wants expansion into South Wales, the north of England and Northern Ireland. 'We have tried to purchase a group there,' he says of Ulster, 'but the expectations of the owners were too high. The transaction never happened.'

Plugging the gaps
As ever he's impatient for the Optical Express business to grow, and although he acknowledges there is a 'good concentration' of stores within the M25, outside its immediate vicinity he does not have what he calls 'critical mass'.
'We don't have the economies of scale for advertising and marketing we would like. Because of the distance between some of the stores the regional managers have a lot of distance to do. What we'd like to do is increase the number of stores in the gaps.'
Not surprisingly, he's happier with the representation of Optical Express in Britain's largest cities following his 2002 acquisition of the Health Clinic.
The Health Clinic remains the most headline grabbing of his recent deals. The £7.5m purchase out of administration provided the most eye-catching twist in the Optical Express story to date with the chain's expansion into laser eye surgery. Moulsdale says he'd been tracking the plc for sometime and had wanted to add the 20-outlet group to Optical Express long before it famously crashed.
He recalls how the deal was finalised with his team after many hours of negotiations during the early hours in the London offices of one of the accountants involved. 'We then we drove through the night to the Newcastle store to see it open on the Saturday morning.'
He was delighted to complete the deal, especially the five 'core' optical branches. 'They had established fantastic stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Shaftesbury Avenue, and in Manchester and Leeds.
'Those five businesses were the cornerstones of what we bought when we acquired the 20 Eye Clinics. That's really what we were paying the money for. Our strategy was always to buy the entire business and work hard at making all the individual outlets contribute to the group.
'We knew it was going to take time, but what we really paid the money for was those profitable, solid and stable five clinics. Other clinics are now significantly profitable and we're delighted with them.'
Looking back, his view is that the Health Clinic's entry into alternative health therapies, added to its optical interests, was partly to blame for the collapse of the plc's financial empire. 'The Eye Clinic was really a fantasy and a dream Ð if you were to describe it as a car it had a very polished exterior, and looked very sexy, but with no engine, gearbox, brakes, or mechanics whatsoever.'
When it crashed, Moulsdale says, it was losing £1.5m a month. He soon discovered, however, Optical Express was not the only high-profile bidder for the business. Early in negotiations, Moulsdale was told by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that in administration the Health Clinic had attracted other groups who had pledged 'much bigger numbers than us'.
Nevertheless, it was the consistent approach by Moulsdale and his team which won the day. He said the four crucial ingredients which swung the deal his way were 'the speed in which we went about our business, the consistency of approach, albeit not at a price level that they [the administrators] wanted to accept, the certainty we had the money and that we were happy to take all of the business'.
So what kind of business attracts his attention? Is there a typical Moulsdale acquisition, a formula for an acquisition? 'I think it would be unlikely for us to acquire a business that was maximising its performance, because it's always going to be a very tough challenge for us to add any value,' he says.
'We like businesses that are underperforming within this sector. By a combination of integrating their head office with ours, or improving the buying margin, or by motivating and enthusing the staff, or by bring the marketing budgets together we can succeed. Where there are synergies and benefits in bringing two businesses together, we're interested in talking.'

Road to recovery
Co-op Eyecare was underperforming (because of low staff morale, Moulsdale claims), so too the Health Clinic. After the latter's £65m flotation in 2000 its finances unravelled within two years; pre-tax losses of £800,000 followed rapid expansion, with an accountancy review of £2.3m in costs related to its laser refractive business to boot.
Moulsdale's medicine is to coax the ailing finances back to life with a combination of focusing on improved selling, beneficial cost cuttings, and inspirational management. Co-op Eyecare went through the process in 2001, improving sales by 30 per cent in the first year as Optical Express practices.
How was this achieved? A new, less-restrictive product mix, specific to each store's demographic location, was put in place 'from day one'; unfavoured IT systems were replaced, and top Optical Express managers were assigned so they 'in effect do a hand-holding exercise' with the Co-op teams for the first fortnight to show the incumbents 'our way of interacting with the customer'.
'Of course we didn't see 30 per cent year after year,' he concedes, 'but sales growth has been maintained. When we look at a company we have strict parameters, and a strategy, and I have a very good team which helps.'
His team has looked at 28 businesses so far, and achieved eight acquisitions, and are looking at others now.
His energy is currently partly employed promoting laser eye treatment Ð his sister and other close friends are to have the procedure. He proudly says he is allowing a wider public access to the surgery through a £600 per eye price point at high street clinics.
'It's in line with the Government's policy on health care and well being, and trying to make surgical procedures and enhancements to people's quality of life at a price that people can afford,' he says. 'Lots of people can't afford the higher prices for treatment, but many can afford £600.'
The lifeblood to the success of the refractive sector is good word of mouth he says, so there is no place in the profession for any compromise of clinical standards. To keep track of the minutiae of his burgeoning business he is currently investing heavily in IT systems, including a web-based patient booking scheme, £500,000 on technology to measure customer 'traffic flow' and an electronic internal record of seemingly everything from patient records and product dispatches to staff holiday requests.
'No more faxing records of a prospective laser patient, based in Aberdeen to our Glasgow clinic,' he explains, 'but instant, on-screen details of what the optometrist has said.'
Moulsdale is currently overseeing a recruitment, retention and development programme, and says the company is headhunting the best people in the optical business. He claims Optical Express has recruited a dozen people from competitors in the last six weeks.
Were they attracted by big bucks? 'It's not necessary offering people an open cheque book,' he says. 'It's more a career development opportunity, working with an organisation that is heavily investing in its own future, and is young and vibrant with a forward-thinking, fast paced approach, not stuck in its ways and having layers and layers of bureaucracy.'
Layers of bureaucracy will be the last thing on the minds of the 400 Optical Express managers, optometrists and best performing other staff who will be treated to four days in Spain shortly. Two trips will take Moulsdale's key personnel on another team-building sojourn to Palma in a return visit after last year's successful combination of company philosophy and fun.
'In 2003 we had workshops from Ciba Vision, Pentax, Ocular Sciences, Luxottica and Essilor,' he says. 'This time it'll be more of the same. We'll go through the business's performance, review the year that's been, see our biggest challenges, and set out our business objectives for the year ahead.'
Then its back to Scotland and a long-held appointment with Scotland's RNIB in his capacity as chairman of its new appeal. He is helping to open an Edinburgh rehabilitation centre funded by £1.5m of donations from Optical Express staff together with contributions from charity auctions and Moulsdale himself.
Elsewhere, Moulsdale feels it is necessary for him to be more active within the profession as he is in charge of Britain's largest privately owned opticians.
'Specsavers could say they're the largest but I think that they are a combination of 500 individual companies,' he says with a smile. 'We've gone from nowhere in the space of 13 years from one store to being the largest privately owned optical group in the UK and we haven't even started yet.' 'I really enjoy business,' David Moulsdale tells me. After 13 years at the helm of one of the UK's largest opticians his enthusiasm remains undiminished. 'It's challenging, rewarding, interesting, fulfilling,' he says in his Cumbernauld head office. 'You're dealing with many different situations at one time.'
Right now he's keen to maintain his reputation for being one of the most voracious purchasers of opticians' businesses. 'We are interested in further significant acquisitions, from individual stores to international organisations,' says Moulsdale, who claims his business is 8 per cent ahead in 2003/4.
A large map on the wall behind him Ð dotted with 164 pins, each representing one of his outlets Ð shows the UK progress to date. The latest aim is to open his first outlet in Ireland and establish a laser clinic in Dublin.
As we discuss his business further it is clear that his appetite for acquisition remains exceptionally healthy. 'There are still huge gaps on the map,' he concedes, looking up from his desk. He wants expansion into South Wales, the north of England and Northern Ireland. 'We have tried to purchase a group there,' he says of Ulster, 'but the expectations of the owners were too high. The transaction never happened.'

Plugging the gaps
As ever he's impatient for the Optical Express business to grow, and although he acknowledges there is a 'good concentration' of stores within the M25, outside its immediate vicinity he does not have what he calls 'critical mass'.
'We don't have the economies of scale for advertising and marketing we would like. Because of the distance between some of the stores the regional managers have a lot of distance to do. What we'd like to do is increase the number of stores in the gaps.'
Not surprisingly, he's happier with the representation of Optical Express in Britain's largest cities following his 2002 acquisition of the Health Clinic.
The Health Clinic remains the most headline grabbing of his recent deals. The £7.5m purchase out of administration provided the most eye-catching twist in the Optical Express story to date with the chain's expansion into laser eye surgery. Moulsdale says he'd been tracking the plc for sometime and had wanted to add the 20-outlet group to Optical Express long before it famously crashed.
He recalls how the deal was finalised with his team after many hours of negotiations during the early hours in the London offices of one of the accountants involved. 'We then we drove through the night to the Newcastle store to see it open on the Saturday morning.'
He was delighted to complete the deal, especially the five 'core' optical branches. 'They had established fantastic stores in Newcastle, Glasgow, Shaftesbury Avenue, and in Manchester and Leeds.
'Those five businesses were the cornerstones of what we bought when we acquired the 20 Eye Clinics. That's really what we were paying the money for. Our strategy was always to buy the entire business and work hard at making all the individual outlets contribute to the group.
'We knew it was going to take time, but what we really paid the money for was those profitable, solid and stable five clinics. Other clinics are now significantly profitable and we're delighted with them.'
Looking back, his view is that the Health Clinic's entry into alternative health therapies, added to its optical interests, was partly to blame for the collapse of the plc's financial empire. 'The Eye Clinic was really a fantasy and a dream Ð if you were to describe it as a car it had a very polished exterior, and looked very sexy, but with no engine, gearbox, brakes, or mechanics whatsoever.'
When it crashed, Moulsdale says, it was losing £1.5m a month. He soon discovered, however, Optical Express was not the only high-profile bidder for the business. Early in negotiations, Moulsdale was told by PriceWaterhouseCoopers that in administration the Health Clinic had attracted other groups who had pledged 'much bigger numbers than us'.
Nevertheless, it was the consistent approach by Moulsdale and his team which won the day. He said the four crucial ingredients which swung the deal his way were 'the speed in which we went about our business, the consistency of approach, albeit not at a price level that they [the administrators] wanted to accept, the certainty we had the money and that we were happy to take all of the business'.
So what kind of business attracts his attention? Is there a typical Moulsdale acquisition, a formula for an acquisition? 'I think it would be unlikely for us to acquire a business that was maximising its performance, because it's always going to be a very tough challenge for us to add any value,' he says.
'We like businesses that are underperforming within this sector. By a combination of integrating their head office with ours, or improving the buying margin, or by motivating and enthusing the staff, or by bring the marketing budgets together we can succeed. Where there are synergies and benefits in bringing two businesses together, we're interested in talking.'

Road to recovery
Co-op Eyecare was underperforming (because of low staff morale, Moulsdale claims), so too the Health Clinic. After the latter's £65m flotation in 2000 its finances unravelled within two years; pre-tax losses of £800,000 followed rapid expansion, with an accountancy review of £2.3m in costs related to its laser refractive business to boot.
Moulsdale's medicine is to coax the ailing finances back to life with a combination of focusing on improved selling, beneficial cost cuttings, and inspirational management. Co-op Eyecare went through the process in 2001, improving sales by 30 per cent in the first year as Optical Express practices.
How was this achieved? A new, less-restrictive product mix, specific to each store's demographic location, was put in place 'from day one'; unfavoured IT systems were replaced, and top Optical Express managers were assigned so they 'in effect do a hand-holding exercise' with the Co-op teams for the first fortnight to show the incumbents 'our way of interacting with the customer'.
'Of course we didn't see 30 per cent year after year,' he concedes, 'but sales growth has been maintained. When we look at a company we have strict parameters, and a strategy, and I have a very good team which helps.'
His team has looked at 28 businesses so far, and achieved eight acquisitions, and are looking at others now.
His energy is currently partly employed promoting laser eye treatment Ð his sister and other close friends are to have the procedure. He proudly says he is allowing a wider public access to the surgery through a £600 per eye price point at high street clinics.
'It's in line with the Government's policy on health care and well being, and trying to make surgical procedures and enhancements to people's quality of life at a price that people can afford,' he says. 'Lots of people can't afford the higher prices for treatment, but many can afford £600.'
The lifeblood to the success of the refractive sector is good word of mouth he says, so there is no place in the profession for any compromise of clinical standards. To keep track of the minutiae of his burgeoning business he is currently investing heavily in IT systems, including a web-based patient booking scheme, £500,000 on technology to measure customer 'traffic flow' and an electronic internal record of seemingly everything from patient records and product dispatches to staff holiday requests.
'No more faxing records of a prospective laser patient, based in Aberdeen to our Glasgow clinic,' he explains, 'but instant, on-screen details of what the optometrist has said.'
Moulsdale is currently overseeing a recruitment, retention and development programme, and says the company is headhunting the best people in the optical business. He claims Optical Express has recruited a dozen people from competitors in the last six weeks.
Were they attracted by big bucks? 'It's not necessary offering people an open cheque book,' he says. 'It's more a career development opportunity, working with an organisation that is heavily investing in its own future, and is young and vibrant with a forward-thinking, fast paced approach, not stuck in its ways and having layers and layers of bureaucracy.'
Layers of bureaucracy will be the last thing on the minds of the 400 Optical Express managers, optometrists and best performing other staff who will be treated to four days in Spain shortly. Two trips will take Moulsdale's key personnel on another team-building sojourn to Palma in a return visit after last year's successful combination of company philosophy and fun.
'In 2003 we had workshops from Ciba Vision, Pentax, Ocular Sciences, Luxottica and Essilor,' he says. 'This time it'll be more of the same. We'll go through the business's performance, review the year that's been, see our biggest challenges, and set out our business objectives for the year ahead.'
Then its back to Scotland and a long-held appointment with Scotland's RNIB in his capacity as chairman of its new appeal. He is helping to open an Edinburgh rehabilitation centre funded by £1.5m of donations from Optical Express staff together with contributions from charity auctions and Moulsdale himself.
Elsewhere, Moulsdale feels it is necessary for him to be more active within the profession as he is in charge of Britain's largest privately owned opticians.
'Specsavers could say they're the largest but I think that they are a combination of 500 individual companies,' he says with a smile. 'We've gone from nowhere in the space of 13 years from one store to being the largest privately owned optical group in the UK and we haven't even started yet.'