All Article articles – Page 196
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Airess And L'amy Reshuffle Their Brand Portfolios
The two French frame manufacturers, are pursuing divergent strategies after rationalizing their internal processes and their international sales networks. While Airess is slimming down, concentrating on fewer brands, L'Amy is getting more of them, building up a small decentralized empire of controlled entities that make use of the same sophisticated ...
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Sales Decline At Moulin, But Margins Get Better
Moulin International's turnover for the 6 months ended June 30 were down 2 percent to HK$603.0 million (€66.6m?$77.9m), but its net profit rose by 21 percent to HK$83.1 million (€9.2m?$10.8m), These figures are compared to the 6 months ended Sept. 30, 2002, due to a change in the fiscal year. ...
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Rodenstock Gets A New Ceo And Passes Some Brands To Moulin/Metzler
The German company, in which the Permira investment fund acquired a 49 percent minority stake earlier this year, wants to continue to offer both lenses and frames, but its business with frames and sunglasses will be limited to the Rodenstock and Porsche Design brands. One line is classical and the ...
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Marcolin's Us Losses Bring Profits Down Sharply
A crisis in the Italian group's US subsidiary brought Marcolin's first-half results for this year down drastically, as the USA accounts for one-third of the group's total business. The difficulties set in some time ago and Marcolin reacted in 2001 by purchasing a major US distributor based in Miami, Creative ...
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Krys' Parent Company Buys Lynx
Guildinvest, one of the two major buying groups in France, has signed a deal in principle to acquire Lynx Optique, a large chain of 119 corporate and franchised stores with a 2002 turnover of €73 million. Including CDO, a pure banner-free buying group acquired one year ago to which some ...
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Italy's Sunglass Exports Slump
Italian-made eyewear lost ground in the 1st half of the year, with the sunglass sector suffering strongly. Frames for prescription eyewear actually gained some points, but not enough to compensate for the drop in sunglasses. Imports into Italy also fell, indicating a slump in domestic demand which can be attributed ...
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Grandvision Reshuffles Uk Management
The French group is following very closely the mysterious bid for the control of Cole National as Cole's major shareholder, HAL, became a few weeks ago the major shareholder of GrandVision, with a stake of 32.9 percent (see previous issue of EyeWear Intelligence). Meanwhile, it has appointed a new management ...
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Specsavers Buys 10 Stores In Holland
After looking at the recent changes in the optical retail market, the Prins family, which has been in this business in Holland for more than 80 years, has agreed to sell 10 of its 14 Prins Brillen stores to Specsavers Optical Group, raising to 61 the number of stores operated ...
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Essilor Posts A Record 10% Net Margin
The world leader in ophthalmic products had previously set a goal of reaching a 17 percent operating margin by 2005. In spite of several negative factors, such as the weakness of the dollar, Essilor managed to raise its operating profit by 3.0 percent in the 1st half of 2003, taking ...
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De Rigo Sees Better Times Ahead
De Rigo's net income declined by 9.6 percent to €8,458,000 in the 1st half of this year, going down from 3.4 to 3.1 percent of sales, but the operating margin (Ebit) improved from 6.9 to 7.1 percent and the results should be better in the 2nd half thanks to several ...
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Allison Gets The John Richmond License
The Italian company has been granted the production and distribution license for a line of sunglasses and prescription eyewear by John Richmond, the English apparel designer. The first collections will be showcased at the SILMO show in Paris in October, featuring about 30 models for men and women in 100 ...
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Guildinvest Repositions Its Banners
Krys, Vision Plus and Vision Originale, the 3 optical retail banners used by the retail members of La Guilde des Lunetiers and its holding company, Guildinvest, will be repositioned for a better response to the changing demands of French consumers and to help recruit new members. As previously reported, the ...
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Hal Trust Stops Short Of A Takeover Bid For Grandvision
The attempt by GrandVision's founding shareholders to acquire a blocking minority interest in the group with the help of PAI has ended up in failure. Although PAI's public bid for GrandVision at €21 a share finished on Sept. 17, the share price has since remained higher than before, around a ...
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Rudy Project Makes Progress As A Niche Brand, Too
This little Italian sports eyewear firm got a lot of visibility at last July's highly publicized Tour de France bicycle race, where 32 percent of the participants and 6 high-level teams were wearing its glasses. While Oakley celebrated Lance Amstrong's 5th victory in the race, Rudy Project is now planning ...
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The Industry Gets A Voice In Brussels
ORGALIME, the liason committee of the European metalworking and engineering industry, has signed a contract to represent EUROM 1, the committee that groups all the major national associations of eyewear lens and frame manufacturers in Europe, in its relations with the regulators of the European Union in Brussels on a ...
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Silmo Finances A Campaign To Stimulate The French To Spend More On Eyewear
The campaign, with a tentative budget said to be between €5 and €6 million over a 3-year period, will be funded by SILMO, the growing and successful international fair held in Paris in October, which is sponsored by the French eyewear industry. It's not specifically designed to promote French products, ...
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Coopervision Outperforms Competitors
CooperVision has accelerated its plans to introduce Proclear multifocal contact lenses, which are now scheduled to be launched within the next 6 months, first in Europe and then in the USA. The company's sales of Frequency Multifocal lenses, which were launched outside the USA a few months ago, are still ...
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Maui Jim Sets Up Offices In Various European Countries
This big American brand of polarized sunglasses has set up its own fully owned sales operations in Germany, Italy and the UK over the last few months, hiring experienced professionals to run them. Michel Joffre, the Frenchman who has been running Maui Jim's European activities directly out of France for ...
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Julbo Enters New Markets
This small French sports eyewear company, best known for its plastic injected children's sunglasses, which represented about one-quarter of its total volume of 675,000 units in 2002, is venturing into new ground by introducing its first snow goggles as well as its first line of sunglasses with metal frames. To ...
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Fielmann Performed Very Well Lately, Especially Abroad
The group's ordinary pre-tax profit jumped in the 1st half of this year by 22.9 percent to $45,623,000, or 12.8 percent of consolidated sales. In Germany, Fielmann's pre-tax margin dropped slightly to 8.9 percent on 9.8 percent higher sales of €288.5 million. In Switzerland, it grew to €4.9 million, equal ...
