All Article articles – Page 215
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Philippe Degrenne Heads Up Cebe
Philippe Degrenne, a 48-year-old executive of Cébé International who has been with the company for 5 years, is promoted as CEO, replacing Armel Cahierre who is moving to the USA for family reasons (he is married with an American). Degrenne has been manager of operations since 1996, and finance manager ...
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Growing Fedon Makes An Investment On A Chinese Trading Company
The world's leading manufacturer of eyewear cases, Fedon, posted very good half-year results through June 30, claiming a 22 percent world market share and reporting total production of 63 million units in the period, accessories included. Listed on the over-the-counter of the Paris Bourse, the Italian firm recorded a sales ...
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Wesley Jessen Helps Ciba Vision To Grow
CIBA Vision raised its sales by 43 percent to 881 million Swiss francs (e581m-$526m) in the 1st half ended June 30, with a 45 percent increase in local currencies, but a full 43 percentage points were due to last October's acquisition of Wesley Jessen. Sales of conventional contact lenses and ...
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Sola Continues To Make Progress Financially
Sola International's global sales dropped by 4.2 percent to $136 million in the 1st quarter ended June 30, due in part to the strength of the dollar and continued efforts to reduce sales of low-margin products in the USA, Brazil and Asia. In terms of local currencies and based on ...
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Luxottica's Retail Margins Improve, But Debt Equals First-half Revenues
Turnover and profit both shot up further for the Italian group after its acquisition of Sunglass Hut, which was consolidated into its accounts as of Apr. 1. Total first-half revenues show a 24.9 percent increase to 1,570.6 million euros, while operating and net income both rose by 28.4 percent to ...
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Fielmann Expects Double-digit Gains
The large German optical retail chain expects a 10 percent sales increase to about 770 million euros for the year, but while July and August were relatively good, the final score will largely depend on the critical 4th quarter. The group's net income is still expected to grow at a ...
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Essilor Had Some Positive Results In Half
Essilor improved its operating margin to 14.6 percent of sales in the 1st half ended June 30 from 14 percent in the year ago period. Its operating income grew in fact by 11 percent to 152.3 million euros, without including e12.3 million for the cost of developing VisionWeb and other ...
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Marine Explores Strategic Options
Marine Optical is evaluating various strategic options for its future together with its main creditor, Dominion Resources of Richmond, Virginia, working through Ernst & Young. It sounds like Marine is looking for a new investor. Dave duFour, Marine's new president and CEO, and other company officials refuse to indicate whether ...
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Jobson Folds Sightstreet Into Vision Web
The US-based publisher of Vision Monday, 20/20 and other trade magazines had launched its own open Sightstreet.com website at the beginning of last year as a contents-rich one-stop online ordering operation. Jobson Publishing has now decided to merge Sightstreet into the new VisionWeb portal pioneered by Essilor International, in return ...
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Grandvision Improves Margins Sharply
The European retail group appears to be in line with its goal to raise the operating margin (EBIT) of its optical stores to 6 percent of sales this year and to 9.5-10 percent in 2003 from 3.8 percent in 2000. Sales should grow by 13 percent this year, despite a ...
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Luxottica And Oakley Are At War
Oakley has sought over the past few years to diminish its dependence on Sunglass Hut, which still accounted for 19 percent of its own sales in the 12 months ended June 30, down from a peak of 31 percent in 1996, but efforts to establish a new relationship following Sunglass ...
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Luxottica Looks At New Acquisitions And New Facilities For Plastic Sun Lenses
Luxottica continues its shopping spree. Oakley may be the next item on the list, provided the price looks right. Anyhow, one of Leonardo Del Vecchio's priorities is to acquire other optical retail chains, particularly in North America, Australia and the UK. In the USA, the group will be looking exclusively ...
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Three Italian Glossy Magazines Have Given Away Dangerous Sunglasses
Three major Italian women's magazines - Gente, Novella 2000 and Grazia - came out in the newsstands during the second half of June offering as a gadget a pair of sunglasses that don't respect the European safety standards. Anfao, the Italian eyewear industry federation, which has launched a campaign against ...
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Boots Rolls Out A New Optical Format
Designed to create a new environment that will offer a special ?customer journey,? clearly differentiating Boots Opticians from price-driven competitors, the new store format will be rolled out this year on 25 locations at a total cost of £4 million (e m-$m). The new investments follow continued disappointing results for ...
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Buchmann Takes Conditional Control Of Pro-laser
The establishment of the world's largest provider of technology solutions for the optical retail market is not yet quite a reality. Buchmann Optical Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire just over 51 percent of the loss-making Pro-Laser Group, staving off a possible bankruptcy of the young Israeli-based company, but ...
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Hal Raises Its Stake In Cole National
HAL Holding is the controlling shareholder of Pearle Europe, parent company of Apollo Optik, Avanzi, MultiOpticas and other optical retail chains in Europe. HAL International, a unit of the Dutch-based conglomerate, has increased again to over 20 percent its shareholding in Cole National Corp., which owns several optical retail chains ...
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Vittorio Tabacchi Is Running Up A Huge Debt To Gain Control Of Safilo
A pool of banks has lent 1,150 billion lire (e594m-$508m) to Vittorio Tabacchi to help him and his children Massimiliano and Samantha to complete the acquisition of all the Safilo shares they didn't own before. They are currently involved in a public friendly tender at 12.50 euros a share for ...
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Zva Will Manage The New European Diploma For Optometry
The European Council of Optometry and Optics (ECOO) decided last month to award the contract to manage the future European Diploma of Optometry to ZVA, the strong and efficient German opticians' federation, which had made the cheapest of 5-6 different national offers. The ZVA had previously agreed to lend £20,000 ...
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Rodenstock Suffers A Temporary Drop In Net Earnings
Rodenstock reports for last year a net profit of only 5 million DM (e2.5m-$2m), down sharply from 19 million DM earned in 1999. The operating income remained practically stable at 51 million DM (e26m-$22m), as compared to 52 million DM, but higher amortization charges and a variety of extraordinary expenditures ...
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Grandvision Says It's Not For Sale, Targets Italy And Spain
The management of the international French-based optical retail group says it will ?fiercely? oppose any unfriendly bid for the company, even if the price offered were 35 percent higher than the current stockmarket value of about 22 euros. With 71 percent of its equity floating on the Paris stock exchange ...
