All Article articles – Page 173
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Visibilia Turns Around And Targets €50 Million In Turnover
Dan Emanuel Levi, president of Visibilia and member of the Mevorach family that has run the group for many years, has become the company's majority owner, with a 70 percent controlling stake. The 36-year-old executive, who worked previously for KPMG Corporate Finance, expects the Italian group to recover from its ...
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Eurovista Takes Vision Service Up To 761 Outlets
Eurovista, an Italian buying group with 97 affiliated optical stores in the North of the country, has merged into Vision Service, making it a clear leader with a total of 761 outlets. The group had already begun a phase of strong organic expansion, growing from 609 in 2004 to 664 ...
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Eye Infection Outbreak Envelops Two More Companies While B&L Uses And Abuses The Media
Bausch & Lomb has ordered a permanent worldwide retraction of its ReNu with MoistureLoc solution, which continues to be under investigation by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration on suspicion that it has been connected with a recent outbreak of an eye disease, Fusarium keratitis. The solution generated about $100 million ...
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Luxottica Attains Leadership In Canada
Luxottica is acquiring Shoppers Optical, a Canadian chain of 74 optical stores operating in eight different provinces, with its base in Ontario. After the closing of the transaction, which is expected next month, all the stores will be converted to the Pearle Vision format, which is very similar. With a ...
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Highmark Is Becoming A Small Luxottica
The comparison may sound a little far-fetched, but it's true. Like Luxottica, which is far bigger, Highmark owns a large branded eyewear company, Viva International, bought in February 2005 after its owner, Harvey Ross, failed to agree on a merger with De Rigo's wholesale operations. Highmark has a big managed ...
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Marchon Invests In Computer Power And Fashion
Marchon, the biggest American supplier of prescription frames and sunglasses and one of the largest ones in the world, continues to stay out of the retail sector, but it has bought Office Mate Software Solutions, boosting a computer division which is now the largest supplier of dedicated software for U.S. ...
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Marcolin Plans Equity Increase On The Road To Recovery
To help support its present recovery, Marcolin's board of directors is expected to vote at its next meeting on a proposal to increase the company's equity by up to €50 million over the next five years. The Della Valle and Marcolin families will probably retain their equal shares. The proceeds ...
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Half Of Global Trade In Sunglasses Is Italian
Italy's eyewear production, consisting mainly of sunglasses and frames, made a strong recovery in 2005 after three flat years, raising its revenues by 10.3 percent to €2,104.75 million, according to the final figures reported by ANFAO, the country's eyewear industry association, confirming its global primacy if China and Hong Kong ...
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Thai Optical Goes Public
Thai Optical Group, one of the world's largest independent manufacturers and distributors of optical lenses, began trading on the Bangkok Stock Exchange last May 16, floating 68 million new shares that represent 17 percent of its equity. The initial offer, which was underwritten by Aynolhaya Securities, was oversubscribed. After trading ...
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Orange 21 Sees Europe As Its Biggest Future Market Abroad
Some of the woes experienced by the parent of Spy Optics in its first year as a public company had to do with delivery problems and other kinds of troubles outside the USA, but still the American company's sales in Europe rose by 37 percent during the year. Sales grew ...
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Satisloh Partners With 3m And Prepares Product Introductions For Mido
Satisloh North America has entered a distribution agreement with 3M under which it will distribute its 3M Leap III finishing pads as well as its 3M Surface Saver tape products. The 3M products are intended to complement the Weco finishing equipment that Satisloh recently began distributing to optical laboratories in ...
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Profit Falls For Advanced Medical Optics
A pre-tax charge of $35.2 million related to repositioning initiatives pulled down Advanced Medical Optics' net income to $2,600,000, as compared to $13,800,000 in the year-ago period. Total sales rose by 23.7 percent to $238.2 million. Sales of eye care products dropped by 23 percent to $56.8 million, with a ...
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North America Takes Over As The Largest Market For Essilor
North America surpassed Europe as Essilor's largest market in the 1st quarter, ended March 31, as revenues in the region grew by 29.5 percent to €309.1 million, thanks in part to a stronger dollar. In Europe, instead, the group's sales role by 11.5 percent to €300.0 million. They grew by ...
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Vision Expo's Attendance Is Analyzed
The recent Vision Expo East fair in New York was apparently well-attended, against the backdrop of a relatively buoyant U.S. market, although the attendance figures are still being compiled. Visitors indicated that it was easy to navigate, but their motivations seemed to go beyond the purpose of placing orders and ...
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Plimsoll Analyzes Uk Market
Plimsoll Publishing has analyzed the financial performances of the top 1,000 optical companies in the UK over the last four years and presented it in a 1,260 page report. In one of the findings, 22 percent of the companies analyzed over a recent 12-month period were in financial danger and ...
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Boots Opticians May Be Turning Around
Boots Opticians plans to increase the number of its franchised doors from eight to 20 in the near future. Meanwhile, preliminary figures suggest that the management integration of Boots Opticians into that of the Boots the Chemists drugstores started to pay off for the UK-based optical retail chain in the ...
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Austrians Run A Camera-like Promotion
Austrian opticians have launched a new awareness campaign, using television, radio and billboards, that pictures the eye as a high-tech life-time organ with a resolution of 130 million pixels, an auto-focus system and self-cleaning lenses. Run under the tagline ?Überlassen Sie Ihre Augen nicht einfach irgendeiner Brille,? (= Don't trust ...
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Metzler Goes Bankrupt In Italy And The Usa
The British and German Metzler subsidiaries of the bankrupt Moulin Global Eyecare Holdings have already gone bankrupt, as we have already reported, and the German one has been taken over by an investment company along with its licenses. A few days ago, a Venice court declared the final bankruptcy of ...
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Eye Infection Takes Toll On Bausch & Lomb' Sales
In the midst of an ongoing investigation into possible links between Bausch & Lomb's ReNu solution with MoistureLoc and an infection that could cause blindness, several reports in consumer publications have prompted large retailers in the USA like Wal-Mart and Walgreens to pull some or all of the company's ReNu ...
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Shift Towards Eyewear Begins To Show In Oakley's First Quarter
In the 1st quarter ended March 31, the company's optics sales had strong growth of 12.3 percent to $107.0 million, underlining the recent announcement by Oakley's new management that it would shift its focus away from apparel and footwear and more to its core optical business. Several factors ...
