Mister Spex considers listing or sale by 2018: CEO in paper

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Mister Spex, Germany's biggest online eye wear retailer, may either list on the stock exchange or sell a majority stake to an investor over the next three years, its chief executive told a German weekly. "In the next 18 to 36 months we will either float on the stock exchange or sell a majority to a strategic investor," Dirk Graber told Welt am Sonntag in an interview. Asked whether he would want to sell to German spectacles retailer Fielmann, Graber said he saw such a move as unlikely. "It would more likely be an international company, which would be substantially larger than Fielmann. No decisions have been made yet though," he was quoted as saying. Online sales of eye wear is creating more competition for traditional opticians such as Fielmann and Apollo Optik branded chains. Mister Spex, whose owners include Scottish Equity Partners, Goldman Sachs and Grazia Equity, made sales of 65 million euros ($73.5 million) in 2014, up from 47 million in the previous year. The company expects growth in the mid-double-digit percentage range in 2015. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz. Editing by Jane Merriman)