All Article articles – Page 216
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Allison Gets Anna Sui License For 10 Years
Allison, the eyewear branch of Tonino Perna's IT Holding, signed a licensing agreement with the Chinese-American designer on April 30. The new license, which will involve an investment similar to that sustained for its own Romeo Gigli and Exté license, the new agreement with Anna Sui will run for a ...
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Nikon Lenses Target 5% Of European Market Through Novisia By 2004
That's the ambitious goal set by Nikon and Essilor International, which formed a strategic worldwide 50-50 partnership for Nikon's line of lenses in January of 2000, and there are indications that the well-balanced high-tech line stands to reach a minimum 1 percent market penetration after 12 months in each country ...
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Italian Imports Shoot Up By 44.7%
The final statistical data for the Italian eyewear sector show a serious 44.7 percent boom in imports to 803 billion lire (e415m-$356m), with sunglasses up to 304 billion lire (e155m-$133m) and prescription glasses up to 290 billion lire (e148m-$127m). These imports continued to soar in the first quarter of 2001, ...
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Visibilia Adds New Managers, New Brand
The Italian eyewear manufacturer, based in Venice, launched at this month's Mido fair a new licensed high-end brand of eyewear, Gerani. It represents the 7th brand in Visibilia's portfolio, which already includes major fashion names such as Laura Biagiotti, Stefanel and Trussardi. Visibilia has budgeted a 12 percent increase ...
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Pambianco Analyzes The Eyewear Sector
Suppliers of eyewear frames are doing well on the stock exchange. Based on a study conducted by Carlo Pambianco's management consultancy in Milan, at 16 trillion lire (e8.2bn-$7bn) the joint stockmarket capitalization of Italy's 4 major publicly quoted eyewear firms in March was equal to 2.3 times their combined annual ...
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De Rigo Prepares Secondary Offering And Makes New Appointments
De Rigo has appointed Lazard and IntesaBCI as global coordinators for a secondary offering on the Milan stock exchange that is tentatively scheduled for November. It's not sure how many new shares will be issued, but probably the Milan IPO won't be much more generous than the one launched by ...
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Bourgeois Appoints A New Ceo
Matthieu Clodong is the new managing director of Bourgeois. A 30-year-old management consultant who has been working on the reorganization of the French firm as an employee of Deloitte & Touche, Clodong will take over the post left vacant by the abrupt departure of Philippe Castilla at the end of ...
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Vuarnet Rebounds In The Usa, Re-enters The Australian Market
Vuarnet, the French specialist in mineral sunglasses, raised its US sales by 19.5 percent to $5 million last year, and it's projecting to take them to $7 million this year thanks to new contracts with major department stores, such as Nordstrom and Macy's, and the resumption of advertising in the ...
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Marchon Boosts Its Own Management
The large privately held American eyewear group, which is contemplating a possible public offering in the medium-long term, has appointed three new top-notch executives to help manage its fast-growing operations and to optimize back-office functions. They all report to Al Berg, one of the financial partners in Marchon, who assumed ...
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Pro-laser And Briot Are Set To Merge
Buchmann Holding of Belgium, which recently sold its lens manufacturing operations to Hoya, has signed a letter of intent to merge its French-based Briot International subsidiary with the 9-year-old Israeli-based Pro-Laser Group, which took over Weco and Rodenstock Instrumente from Rodenstock in 1999. The combination would reducAe R&D costs ...
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Salmoiraghi Launches A Buying Group
Italy's major chain of optical stores, Salmoiraghi & Vigano, is fostering the establishment of a separate buying group of independent opticians to whom it will extend some of its own very favorable purchasing conditions. The project is conducted by Massimo Corti, who is in charge of franchising and new ...
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Vermeer Is Vistakon's New European Chief
Fred Vermeer has replaced Paul Donald as chairman of Vistakon Europe. He had previously run Vistakon's Australian-based Asia/Pacific operations. Donald has moved to Johnson & Johnson's world headquarters in Florida to act as president of Vistakon's global franchise team. Meanwhile, Vistakon has finally settled a 6-year-old class action suit ...
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Fielmann Continues To Improve Margins
Europe's largest integrated chain of optical stores is forecasting an increase of between 17 and 20 percent in its net earnings this year, accompanied by an increase of only 8-10 percent in its turnover. Among other factors, Fielmann's gross margin should start to go up after the completion in June ...
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Luxottica Sells Less Through Lens-crafters, And De Rigo Isn't Pushing It
Officials of Luxottica indicate that they have decided to lower from 70 to about 50 percent the volume of Lenscrafters' eyewear frames represented by its own products, in order to avoid antagonizing other US retailers. On the other hand, the Italian group will conduct certain tests to see if it ...
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Where Is Grandvision Going Now Without Its Photo Shops?
Executives of Fielmann had no comment when asked whether their company was perhaps negotiating to acquire GrandVision now that the French-based optical retail chain has sold all its 472 photo shops, as we had anticipated in the last issue of EyeWear Intelligence. Another possible candidate may be LVMH, the giant ...
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Sola Sees Improving Margins
Sola International is anticipating further gains in profitability this year, but no major increases in revenues. The portion taken up by value-added products in its turnover should rise further from the 71 percent rate of the 4th quarter ended March 31. Furthermore, the massive relocation of manufacturing operations to low-cost ...
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Pearle Moves Into Portugal
Pearle Europe continues its shopping spree with the acquisition of a 100 percent stake in MultiOpticas, the leading optical retail chain in Portugal with 30 company-owned stores and 106 franchised outlets. Pearle says MultiOpticas plans to open more stores and to raise the number of its franchises in the country. ...
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Vittorio Tabacchi Takes Safilo Private
By the end of July, Safilo should become the sole property of Vittorio Tabacchi and his family, including his two children Samantha and Massimiliano, and the world's second-largest eyewear firm will not longer be trading publicly. Consob, the Italian stock exchange watchdog authority, in fact forced the trio to launch ...
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Luxottica Reaches 12.6% Net Margin
Luxottica also reduced its debt by 94.4 million euros to e813.8 million in the first 3 months of this year, before the heavy financial outlay for the takeover of Sunglass Hut, the world's largest sunglass chain. Quarterly figures show a 9.7 percent gain in consolidated net revenues to e664.1 million, ...
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De Rigo Raises Sales By 18.4% In First Quarter
No profit figures were given yet, but the group's sales increased by 18.4 percent to 255.7 billion lire in the period (e132.1m-$119.1m), or 19.8 percent in local currencies, thanks to the full consolidation of the General Optica chain in Spain and to the EID joint venture with Prada reach cruising ...
