All Article articles – Page 212
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Bayer Starts Co-branding Its Makrolon Polycarbonate
Bayer, the world's second-largest manufacturer of polycarbonate after General Electric, plans to double its annual capacity to 1.4 million tons by 2005. Makrolon is Bayer's second-largest category of polycarbonate, and the German chemical group wants to market now its high-tech lens-quality variety in association with some major customers. The ...
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Luxottica And Oakley Bury The Hatchet
The Goliath and the David of sports eyewear have made peace, probably because they are very useful to each other. Luxottica and Oakley struck earlier this month an original 3-year agreement that puts an end to their dispute over the pricing of Oakley eyewear. Effective immediately, the deal puts Oakley's ...
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Bushnell Group Makes Use Of Synergies
The Bushnell Performance Optics group is beginning to take advantage of improved processes and synergies among its brands to grow its European business. Orders taken at its two contiguous Bollé and Serengeti stands at the recent Silmo fair in Paris were more than 6 times higher than those taken one ...
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German Market Stagnates, Exports Decline
German opticians had predicted a slight increase in their own turnover, but they are now expecting flat sales in 2001 at best. A survey conducted in August by their trade association, ZVA, showed declines in retail sales of frames of 5.6 percent in volume and 3.6 percent in value in ...
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Hoya Delays Trivex' European Start-up
Most births are painful. Trivex, the new lens material developed by PPG Industries, has been hit by initial production capacity and yield problems that have prevented one of its first licensees, Hoya, from introducing it on the European market this fall, as previously planned. Hoya, which calls the material Phoenix ...
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Safilo May Move Into U.S. Retailing While It Gets Its Dior License Extended
It could not be determined yet whether Safilo has persuaded the LVMH group to allow it to sell and market also the Yves Saint Laurent eyewear collection in behalf its other major licensing partner, the Gucci Group. All we know for the moment is that the negotiations with LVMH have ...
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Equity Fund Takes Over Leybold Optics
Unaxis has sold its highly profitable Leybold Optics division for 245 million Swiss francs (e165m-$146m) to EQT Northern Europe, the private equity fund of the Swedish Wallenberg Foundation. The division generated sales of 181 million SF (e122m-$108m) in the 9 months ended Sept. 30. Members of the management ...
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Hoya Has Improved Its Margins
For the 2nd quarter ended Sept. 30, the Japanese group saw an 8.7 increase in net sales to 23,165 million yen (e198.8m-$176.4m) in its vision care operations, which include eyeglass lenses and frames. Aided by the weak yen, vision care revenues outside Japan increased by 18.6 percent to 12,395 million ...
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Salmoiraghi Invests In Refractive Surgery
Italy's leading optical retail chain, Salmoiraghi & Vigano, has formed a new company, Mediservice, to invest on a series of new centers for ophthalmology and refractive surgery. The first one was inaugurated last July in Milan under the name Essevi Laser. It's a joint venture with a famous Italian ophthalmic ...
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Attendance Dropped By 16.09% At Silmo
The initial tally had showed an even more serious 19 percent decrease. The total number of visitors at the Paris show came out to be 22,181 after a finer count of their registration, or 16.09 percent below the score of one year ago. In the aftermath of the Sept. ...
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Luxottica Raises Operating Margins Up To 16.1% At Retail And 25.5% At Wholesale
While Luxottica's war with Oakley takes new aspects with action in court (see News Briefs in this issue), the Italian giant announces the establishment of a 75 percent sales subsidiary in Poland. In outlining its results for the 3rd quarter, Luxottica has also announces the acquisition from Charmant of the ...
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Marcolin Raises Sales By 26%
The Italian company's consolidated turnover rose by 26 percent to 215.8 billion lire (e111.5m-$98.3m) in the first 9 months of this year, thanks in part to the acquisition of Creative Optics in the USA, a country which came to represent 39.4 percent of total revenues. Its merger into Marcolin USA ...
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Essilor Sells Its 44% Stake In Logo
The disposal marks another important step in Essilor International's concentration on its core lens business. Essilor has sold its 44 percent share in Logo, one of France's largest eyewear manufacturers, for a still undisclosed amount. The buyer is the family of Vincent Darnaud, which already controlled Logo and is a ...
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Safilo Lost Momentum In September, But The 9-month Results Were Still Ok
The slowdown in demand triggered by the international situation has led Safilo to reduce its daily eyewear production for the moment from 35,000 to 33,000 pairs. The group has decided to close its Padua factory from Friday, Dec. 7 to Monday, Dec. 10, after a religious holiday on Dec. 8. ...
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Pearle Europe Acquires Polish Chain
Cole National announced this week that its minority owned European offshoot, Pearle Europe, has purchased from GrandVision the Polish Vision Express network of 27 stores, describing it as the leading factor in the country. Mel Groot, who has now formally become CEO of Pearle Europe, is planning to open 4 ...
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Zeiss Merges Its Ophthalmic Systems With Asclepion And Reports Record Results
The reorganization of Zeiss' vision care activities goes on. The Carl Zeiss Group has signed an agreement in principle to merge its ophthalmology equipment business unit, including its ophthalmic systems operations in Jena, Germany and Dublin, California, with Asclepion-Meditec, a public German company based also in Jena. Under the ...
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Zarrella Is Back At Bausch & Lomb As Chairman And Ceo
Ronald L. Zarrella returns to Bausch & Lomb as chairman and CEO after 7 years with General Motors, where he has been replaced by Bob Lutz, the former Chrysler executive, in his latest post as president of North American operations. Zarrella, who is 52 years old, had worked at B&L ...
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The Italian And French Eyewear Districts Have Been Working Together
A 2-year-old transnational project financed by the European Union for cooperation between two mountain zones, both renowned for their eyewear industry, is about to draw to a close. The Cadore Valley in Italy's Belluno province and the Haut-Jura national park north of Geneva in France have started an interesting cooperation, ...
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Boots Opticians Doubles Performance
Now under new management, Boots Opticians doubled its operating profit to £2.8 million (e4.5m-$4m) in the first half ended Sept. 30, in spite of a 1.1 percent sales decline to 96.9 million (e155.3m-$137m). Britain's leading optical chain raised from 1 to 4 the number of its laser eye surgery clinics ...
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Sola Continues To Improve
Sola International's sales in the USA have come back to normal after a 15-20 percent dip during the week of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Sales are expected to be somewhat depressed in the sunlens sector and in North America generally, but the management feels that they problems are ?manageable? ...
