Optical Express boss denies press reports

The article, published by the Sunday Herald (April 25) listed a series of judgements against Optical Express. However, Mr Moulsdale has totally denied this, and said the majority of the 32 judgements mentioned in the Sunday Herald article stemmed from underestimated debts of &\#163;2m from the Specialeyes group which Optical Express bought at the end of 1996. 'It took almost 18 months for all of those debts to become apparent,' he said. 'We had moved head office when companies had started to write to us about it, and we had to get verification that these debts did exist because there was no record of them whatsoever in Specialeyes accounting systems.' He added that all litigation had been settled and resolved, apart from three cases which Optical Express was 'strongly contesting'. Mr Moulsdale said his company dealt with 3,000 business customers, and that the Sunday Herald article had 'absolutely no foundation' and was 'extremely malicious'. 'With all our creditors we adhere to our credit terms,' he said. Mr Moulsdale also said a Scottish National Party freesheet published in the run-up to last week's Scottish parliament elections was malicious. It attacked chancellor Gordon Brown's meeting with Mr Moulsdale at an Optical Express outlet in Glasgow as a visit to 'a man with a financial past'. Mr Moulsdale was previously among a number of Scottish entrepreneurs who warned that independence for Scotland would be bad for business.