Specsavers is the lovechild of husband-and-wife duo Mary and Douglas Perkins – and it very nearly didn't happen. After launching a series of practices under the name Bebbington & Perkins Opticians, the couple sold up for £2m in 1980, fed up with the tight regulation strangling the optical care sector. But just four years later, Thatcher-era reforms changed the game entirely.

In 1984, the pair launched Specsavers from their home, famously working off a ping pong table rather than a proper desk. Their first store in Guernsey soon followed, and today the chain is the world's largest privately-owned eye care and audiology company, spanning 11 countries across three continents with over 3,000 stores globally.

The retailer is one of the few bright spots on an otherwise battered UK high street, where it now boasts more than 1,000 stores. Not to mention the brand's now iconic "should've gone to Specsavers" tagline, which is still lodged firmly in the national lexicon 24 years after it first aired. After reporting £4bn in sales in the year to February 2025, Specsavers has had a confident 2026. In August, it paid a £12m dividend to its parent company after sales rose by 7 per cent.

More than forty years in, and after a leadership run that's been nothing short of visionary, Mary and Doug Perkins are still firmly hands-on at the business. Their first business sold for £2m. Today, we estimate the Specsavers brand to be worth just under £6bn.