All Article articles – Page 175
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Margins Decline At Safilo
Excluding non-recurring expenses, Safilo's operating margins improved in 2005, and the net profit increased by 21.1 percent to €22.9 million. However, before these extraordinary expenses, which included the charges related to its recent initial public offering, the bottom line showed a net profit after minority interests of only €3.1 million ...
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Satisloh's Margins Decline But Orders Are Up Thanks To Loh
Satisloh saw new orders rise by 129 percent to 221.3 million Swiss francs (€140.6m-$169.1m) in 2005, while its revenues increased by 112 percent to CHF198.5 million (€126.1m-$151.7m), owing largely to Satis Vacuum's acquisition of Loh in October 2004. The operating result (EBIT) rose by only 11 percent to CHF13.2 million ...
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Essilor's Ebit Margin Grows To A Record
Essilor improved its operating margin last year to a record level of 17.3 percent of sales, as compared to 16.2 percent in 2004, but it's not sure whether this performance will continue in 2005. Net income after minority interest increased by 17.5 percent to €287.1 million, and the company is ...
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Italy's Exports Are Still On A Growth Path, Led By The Usa And By Sunglasses
Americans have started purchasing Italian sunglasses again, contributing to growth of 15.8 percent ? with a 20.7 percent increase for sunglasses - in the first 11 months of 2005 compared with the same period last year. With €446 million worth of sales, the USA accounted for just less than one-third ...
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Singulus Makes Its First Sale
Singulus Technologies has sold its first commercial model of its new Opticus automatic lens coating machine, following a successful test with Rupp + Hubrach. The identity of the buyer could not be determined, but it is understood to be a European company. Meanwhile, Klaus Hammen has been appointed ...
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Indo Improves Its Results
The Spanish company has reported a net profit of €8,077,000 for 2005, compared with €2,869,000 in the previous year, confirming the improvement of its financial results. Operating income increased by 13.5 percent to €2,824,000 on 13.8 percent higher overall sales of €144.7 million, in spite of a 21 percent raise ...
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Shamir Boosts Eur0pean Operations But It Had A Tough 4th Quarter
Shamir Optical Industry outlined plans this week for a further expansion of its production facilities in Europe, but its latest results came below investors' expectations. In a conference call yesterday releasing its 4th quarter and full-year results for 2005, Shamir said it plans to increase production in Portugal by purchasing ...
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Oakley Had Good Results In 2005, But They Have Been Softening Lately
The company's total eyewear sales grew by a record amount in 2005, but they have been softening since then. Still, Oakley is budgeting an overall sales increase of at least 10 percent in 2006 and in each of the next few years, with earnings set to rise at a higher ...
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Orange 21 Dismisses 2005 As A Year Of Transition
The public U.S. company, which markets the Spy line of sports eyewear, has warned investors that its results for the 2005 fiscal year, ended last Dec. 31, will show a loss of roughly $1.2-1.7 million in spite of an increase in revenues of about 16 percent to $39 million. In ...
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Gatto Astucci Is Up By 8%
Gatto Astucci generated revenues of €32 million in 2005, up 8 percent year on year. Gatto is the world's second largest supplier of eyewear cases, after Fedon, and has subsidiaries worldwide. Gatto Italia ? the parent company, which supplies Italian eyewear producers ? had the strongest growth, between 12 and ...
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Pearle Europe Acquires Optikk Norge, Raising Its Market Share In Norway
Pearle Europe has signed an agreement for the acquisition of 100 percent of the shares in Optikk Norge, a profitable buying group set up in 1985 whose members trade through over 80 optical retail stores in the medium-high segment of the Norwegian market under the Interoptik banner. Pearle Europe already ...
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Oakley Acquires Olivers People, Hires A New European Director
Last month, before reporting some positive financial results, Oakley announced the acquisition of Oliver Peoples, the highly creative luxury sunglass company in Beverly Hills, describing the investment as the first step in a new multi-brand strategy focus on its core business in optics. It is part of a broader new ...
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Alain Afflelou Gets A New Investor
A pan-European investment fund, Bridgepoint, is acquiring a 61.1 percent stake in this big French chain of more than 750 stores - mostly franchised - bearing the name of its founder, Alain Afflelou, in a deal that values the company at about €500 million excluding debt. That's just about one ...
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Visibilia Is Turning Around
With sales on the rise and orders up by 10 percent, Visibilia's operating margin before amortization and depreciation (EBITDA) should finally be back in the black for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. In the previous 12-month period the Italian group had already succeeded in reducing its negative EBITDA ...
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Oakley Maps Out A New Product Strategy To Ensure Continues Progress
Since his nomination four months ago, Oakley's new chief executive, Scott Olivet, has been leading a ?top-to-bottom? review of the company's strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a new multi-year strategy intended to deliver more consistent profit performance, with more emphasis on cash flow and return on investment. The ...
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Fedon Diversifies Further
Fedon has assigned to two of its top managers the job of marketing a rather innovative line of display equipment for all kinds of stores, called Expoplay, after purchasing the business from Italian interests. In another recent diversification from its core business in eyewear cases, the Italian company has also ...
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Ralph Lauren Switches From Safilo To Luxottica
Luxottica announced last Monday the signature of a 10-year licensing agreement with Polo Ralph Lauren, starting on Jan. 1, 2007. The eyewear giant evidently convinced the American fashion house to stop doing business with Safilo thanks to the distribution power represented by its own international retail network, which is particularly ...
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Safilo Breaks €1 Billion Barrier, Extends Ysl License
The #2 player in the global eyewear frame industry saw growth in every market last year, led by the Far East, and its sunglasses segment began to account for the largest portion of its sales with a 51.5 percent share in the total turnover, followed by prescription frames with 41.2 ...
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New Acquisitions Help Essilor To Achieve 10% Growth
In an interesting new diversification, Essilor has acquired a 25 percent stake in Ayudas para la Vision Subnormal (AVS), a Spanish vision rehabilitation center for people suffering from age-related macular degeneration, with an option on a higher share. Company executives indicate that this investment is a way of testing the ...
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Atol Reaches 10% Market Share In France, Goes For 15%
The opticians affiliated with Atol, the third-largest buying group in France, raised their sales by 7 percent on a same-store basis in 2005, against a growth of about 2 percent for the overall French eyewear market. The feat was partially attributed to the group's aggressive marketing campaign. Atol's advertising expenditures ...
