Mister Spex is in turmoil. The supervisory board is dissatisfied, and the founders are out. The new management has now initiated an extensive cost-cutting program. What does this mean for the eyewear retailer?
More than 150 employees of Mister Spex received their termination notices last week. The eyewear retailer has laid off twelve percent of its workforce and closed all eight stores outside of Germany. This move is part of a comprehensive restructuring program aimed at getting the struggling tech company back on track.
On Thursday morning, interim CEO Stephan Schulz-Gohritz and Supervisory Board Chairman Tobias Krauss addressed the Berlin team to announce the measures. Many employees had never seen Krauss before. Dressed in suit pants and a white shirt, the new power duo presented the cost-cutting program in two so-called town hall meetings—one in German and one in English. The night before, Mister Spex had already sent an ad hoc announcement to shareholders. The staff had been forewarned and was accordingly in a bad mood. It was not the first time the 1,300 employees had recently been informed of changes.
Schulz-Gohritz aims to personally inform all those affected by the layoffs and to give the team a sense of confidence with the keyword: growth. While the founders of Mister Spex, Mirko Caspar and Dirk Graber, had primarily communicated bad news in the past—negative cash flow, declining annual results—the interim CEO hopes to motivate with a shift in strategy. He assures that Mister Spex and its employees now have a future.
Schulz-Gohritz was brought into the company at the beginning of the year as CFO. His task was to initiate the cost-cutting program. Co-founder Caspar had just left the board shortly before, and his partner Dirk Graber surprised many by resigning immediately at the end of July, citing personal reasons. However, sources within the company indicate that the supervisory board no longer considered him a suitable candidate. WirtschaftsWoche reported on this development. Caspar and Graber founded Mister Spex over ten years ago, initially as a pure online shop.
Now Schulz-Gohritz is the sole CEO of the once-startup. “I act like a CEO as long as I have the mandate. In my previous executive positions, I always had business responsibility, so I bring the necessary experience,” he says, defending his role. The 59-year-old comes from the medical and care sector, having previously led the finances of medical technology company Biotronik and served as CFO of the Hartmann Group for ten years, where he was responsible for the Kneipp brand.
Criticism of the previous supervisory board
Supervisory Board Chairman Krauss welcomes the developments in the board. He represents the investment company Abacon Capital, which is backed by the family office of Hamburg billionaire Albert Büll. Abacon invested in Mister Spex in 2019, two years before the company went public. According to Krauss, it is one of the most expensive investments of the Hamburg entrepreneurial family. Today, the family office holds about ten percent of the eyewear retailer, making it the second-largest shareholder.
Krauss has been on the supervisory board of Mister Spex since 2020. At that time, the advisory board primarily consisted of employees from the involved venture capital firms, who typically do not interfere with business operations but support the founders’ visions. This was also the case at Mister Spex, a situation Krauss has consistently criticized. He often emphasizes that he comes from the “old world,” where the executive and supervisory boards challenge each other. The former restructuring expert began his career as a consultant at Porsche and has been investing the Büll family’s money for over five years.
Krauss has long believed that changes are necessary at the eyewear retailer—and he is not alone. Since the end of last year, several activist investors have bought into Mister Spex, causing unrest at the last annual general meeting in June. Among them are Carsten Maschmeyer’s son Jo with his investment fund Paladin and the e-commerce company The Platform Group. Their main complaint is the negative business development. “I agree with 75 percent of the criticism from the activist investors,” says Krauss.
At the general meeting, Krauss and his colleagues presented new potential chairmen. The search had been a “long process with the help of personnel consultants.” The committee wanted to appoint supply chain management experts to the position. Previously, Mister Spex had covered the entire value chain itself. The question arose as to whether this was still sensible.
Ultimately, Claus-Dietrich Lahrs and Gil Steyaert were chosen to head the supervisory board—two representatives from the fashion industry. However, they both resigned after only four weeks, announcing their immediate departure at the beginning of July.
This was the moment for Tobias Krauss, who has since become the chief supervisor. He is a strong advocate of the new restructuring program. With Schulz-Gohritz currently the sole CEO, Krauss has stepped out of the background and into the spotlight.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to wait any longer”
It will take months before the first measures show financial success. Schulz-Gohritz has been working on the implementation of “SpexFocus” for six months, he says. Only now has the supervisory board approved the package. “It was a good time; I wouldn’t have wanted to wait any longer,” says the interim CEO.
The restructuring program will initially cost Mister Spex nine million euros. The company will use this to pay for the expired leases of closed stores or the severance payments of laid-off employees. “We worked intensively to make the stores profitable, but we don’t see any other short-term solution. It takes much more financial resources abroad to make the brand known in the first place,” explains the CEO. The company aims to increase its EBITDA by at least 20 million euros over the next two fiscal years. In the first half of 2024, the result was minus 3.3 million euros.
The new management team now envisions a “Mister Spex 2.0.” The focus is clearly on retail. A return to the old world, as Krauss repeatedly says: “With an online business, you dilute your EBITDA margin.” The eyewear retailer earns most of its money in brick-and-mortar stores. “You get volume and traffic with sunglasses, but the margin is in progressive lenses. Therefore, we want to participate more in this segment,” adds Schulz-Gohritz. Currently, offline sales account for a third of the company’s revenue, and they want to expand this.
Moving away from the online DNA, the future lies in the optician business. This means customers come into the stores for an eye test, purchase prescription glasses, ideally choose a frame from a Mister Spex own brand, or order sunglasses as well. The company cannot sustain itself in the long term with lifestyle products like eyeglass frames alone. Therefore, the stores will be slightly redesigned, with more space for progressive lenses and fewer sunglasses. This will also broaden the target audience, attracting more people over 40. However, a shortage of skilled workers could become a problem for Mister Spex. Opticians are in short supply.
While the Berlin-based company is currently focused on implementing its new strategy, one issue remains unresolved. After Dirk Graber’s sudden resignation, a CEO is still missing. The supervisory board is still searching, keeping its plans under wraps. The question is whether the new CEO should have industry expertise or focus on growth through acquisitions as an M&A expert.
Shareholders challenge management
The supervisory board has temporarily filled the C-level positions with internal personnel. Chief Commercial Officer Francesco Liut joined in June from EssilorLuxottica, the largest shareholder of Mister Spex. The Italian-French company manufactures lenses and owns the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands. As the group’s marketing chief, Liut was primarily responsible for the Sunglass Hut label.
The second new appointment is Christopher Douglas, a close confidant of Chief Supervisor Krauss. As Chief Restructuring Officer, he is tasked with overseeing the cost-cutting program and keeping an eye on expenses.
A significant cost burden is the new headquarters in eastern Berlin. The office building, with its massive glass facade, was planned before the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the office is too large, and many employees continue to work from home. Mister Spex plans to sublet some of the space, which could solve one problem—one of many.
