Toni Mascolo, the co-founder of Toni & Guy, the hair salon chain, is preparing his family business for a trade sale as spending by Britons on hairdressing reaches record levels of £5 billion.

The Toni & Guy business which began in Clapham, south London, in 1963 is now a global brand with 435 salons as far afield as Qatar, Kazakhstan, Japan and New Zealand. Mr Mascolo, who is 64 and still cuts hair in his West End salons, wants to bring in new investors.

“In the next one or two years, it will be time to sell,” he said.

The Toni & Guy chain, which has 300 salons in Britain, is one piece of an empire comprising a Toni & Guy hair products business, a new brand, label.m, a chain of coffee shops, an IT business, Salongenius, a design company, and a new salon chain, Essensuals, run by Mr Mascolo’s son, Christian.

The Toni & Guy chain in the UK had total revenues of £132 million last year but that income is split between franchisees and the Mascolo family.

A few dozen salons are wholly-owned and some are part-owned. Mr Mascolo reckons that the Toni & Guy operation alone is worth “well over £100 million”, but he wants to build up the label.m brand and launch it in the US, an expansion that could double the value of the family business.