By Cathy Ciccolella
Senior Editor
SAN ANTONIO--Eye Care Centers of America (ECCA) is preparing for its fifth owner in the last 12 years: Highmark, parent of Davis Vision, is buying the chain, which operates 384 optical stores in 36 states.
The transaction is valued at $602 million: $305 million in equity and the remainder in outstanding debt. Under terms of the deal, expected to close in the third quarter, ECCA becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Highmark.
ECCA ranks third on the latest VM Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers listing, with $406.3 million in sales for 2005.
Highmark is buying the chain from Moulin Global Eyecare and Golden Gate Capital, which together acquired ECCA in March 2005 for $450 million. Moulin owned 56 percent of ECCA and Golden Gate owned 43 percent, with company management owning 1 percent.
Other previous owners of ECCA, founded here in 1984, include Sears, Roebuck; Desai Capital Management; and venture capital group Thomas H. Lee Partners.
“The addition of ECCA will give Highmark the ability to continue our commitment to customer choice by maintaining a blended network of private practitioners and retail chains to meet the diverse health care and vision care needs of employers and consumers,” said Ken Melani, MD, Highmark’s president and chief executive officer. The ECCA stores are expected to join Davis Vision’s managed-vision provider panel.
ECCA’s locations will join the 89 Empire Vision Centers stores in New York, New England and Pennsylvania Highmark owns and operates through Davis Vision. Robert Gray, Highmark’s executive vice president, subsidiary services, will oversee ECCA’s operations from a corporate level, a Highmark spokesman told VM.
As for current ECCA chairman and chief executive officer Dave McComas and the rest of the chain’s management team, “there are no imminent plans to make changes to ECCA’s staff and management structure,” the spokesman said.
Asked about possible consolidation of functions between ECCA and Syracuse, N.Y.-based Empire Vision, he said no changes are anticipated at this time.
In February 2005 Highmark acquired Viva International Group. The purchase of Viva, and the pending ECCA acquisition, “will enable Highmark to provide clients with a full spectrum of vision products and services with a fully integrated delivery system,” an announcement said.
Said McComas, who joined ECCA as president and chief operating officer in 1998, “This transaction will enable ECCA to aggressively grow the company. This is a relationship that will prove to be very positive for our company and our associates.”
ECCA’s ownership has been a subject of industry speculation since Moulin fell into financial troubles and was taken over by a court-appointed liquidator last spring. The liquidator had said for some time that ECCA was likely to be sold.
