All Article articles – Page 219
-
Article
Allison Opens A Subsidiary In The Usa
Allison has opened its own sales subsidiary in the USA after purchasing a majority shareholding in Euro-Frames, which had been distributing its own products as a sort of market test since last July. Euro-Frames owner and CEO, Adour Douzjian, has a 20 percent minority stake in the new firm, calledAllison ...
-
Article
Marcolin Buys American Distributor
The Italian eyewear firm has bought for $13 million Creative Optics, one of largest eyewear distributors in the USA, which is handling for the moment only private label collections and American brands like Essence or Unionbay. The US firm, which is budgeting an operating profit of 6.5 billion lire (e3.4m-$3.1m) ...
-
Article
Bausch & Lomb Restructures Chauvin
Bausch & Lomb is reducing from 621 to 580 the number of its employees in France following the integration of Chauvin, the French-based ophthalmic medicine laboratory acquired last summer, which still employed 475 persons in France and 307 in the rest of Europe as of last Dec. 31. B&L is ...
-
Article
Berthet-bondet Will Sells Nikon Frames
Berthet-Bondet, the French manufacturer of eyeglass frames, has signed an exclusive agreement with Nikon to distribute its optical frames in 5 major European countries ? France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Berthet-Bondet controls the distribution of its own products in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, where it plans to ...
-
Article
Luxottica Readies Bid For Sunglass Hut
The world's largest eyewear manufacturer plans to file by March 9 a formal all-cash tender offer for at all the shares of Sunglass Hut International, the world's largest chain of sunglass stores, provided it obtains a majority stake. At $11.50 a share, as compared to $8.30 prior to its announcement ...
-
Article
Will Grandvision Change Owners, Too?
GrandVision's management plans to concentrate on boosting the turnover of each individual store rather than on adding new outlets, targeting an increase in the group's operating margin from 6.7 to 9 percent of sales in 2001 and to 10 percent in 2002. The rate of expansion will slow down, with ...
-
Article
Johnson & Johnson Continues To Sport Nice Margins
Johnson & Johnson, the highly diversified health care group, indicates that Vistakon's disposable contact lens products were among the primary contributors to 3.7 percent sales increase to $10.3 billion last year for its professional segment, along with a variety of medical devices and diagnostic equipment. In local currencies, the division ...
-
Article
Germany Continues With Two Fairs
Randolf Rodenstock, who is chairman of Optica's board of trustees, told a press conference last month that there should be only one optical fair in Germany, but the competition between Cologne and Munich is a stimulus for both to improve their presentation. Like most other firms in the ...
-
Article
Sola Launches Contour Optics, While Looking For New Financing
Executives of Sola International are reasonably confident of obtaining by May 7 new financing, through bank loans or bonds, to get over what appears to be a temporary cash squeeze, largely caused by extraordinary charges linked to the wide-ranging reorganization of its manufacturing operations. The management is confident that the ...
-
Article
Vittorio Tabacchi Obtains Indirect Control Of Safilo
The reshuffling of equity stakes in Safilo, which began last year amid huge controversy and conjecture, is not yet over. Vittorio Tabacchi, chairman of Safilo, has now succeeded in getting his brother Dino to sell a a good chunk of his shareholding in the family holding company, Fimit, which has ...
-
Article
De Rigo Forms Strategic Pact With Lvmh
De Rigo has given to LVMH a major incentive to assign more licenses from its large portfolio of famous fashion brands, possibly including the coveted Christian Dior license held by Safilo. The De Rigo family, which controls about 75 percent of the publicly quoted eyewear company by the same name, ...
-
Article
Grandvision Will Group Its Purchases With The Optic 2000 Buying Group
GrandVision and Optic 2000 plan to pool together their purchasing power, starting this year, in order to obtain better conditions from their external suppliers, particularly in the eyewear frame sector. The landmark deal is the first instance, to our knowledge of a large integrated chain of optical stores cooperating on ...
-
Article
Disappointed Luxottica (+64.7% In Net) Decides Against New Public Offering
Only 25 percent of Luxottica's total equity is floating on the stockmarket in New York and Milan, but there will be no secondary offering of Luxottica shares on the Milan Bourse, at least for a while. Commenting on the group's excellent results for the year 2000, its chairman, Leonardo Del ...
-
Article
Hauslein Is Sunglass Hut's Ceo Again
James N. Hauslein, an executive who has been involved with the build-up of the Sunglass Hut International chain since June of 1987, has become its chief executive officer again, directly responsible also for its operations outside the USA. He will work closely with Greg N. Milne, who joined the company ...
-
Article
Fielmann's Biggest Store Will Be In Amsterdam
Fielmann has found a prime location on Kalvar Straat for its planned Amsterdam superstore. Scheduled to open around September, it will be the company's largest store in Europe with a total surface of 1,200 square meters, larger than those that in Zurich and Vienna. The German optical retailing group ...
-
Article
Lvmh And Prada Have No Stakes Yet In De Rigo, But The Italian Chain Gets Another Lvmh License - Givenchy
Contrary to an Italian press report, there is no evidence that LVMH may have acquired a 5 percent stake in De Rigo. De Rigo denies another part of the report according to which Prada would have already exercised its option on 15 percent of the company's equity, which is due ...
-
Article
Bausch & Lomb's Troubles Continue
There is already some unconfirmed speculation that Bausch & Lomb may be up for sale now, with Novartis/Ciba Vision and Allergan as the most likely suitors. B&L a few days ago that it will eliminate an additional 350 jobs, representing more than 6.5 percent of its remaining workforce. In its ...
-
Article
Belluna's Small Eyewear Makers Meet Major European Chains
Venice will once again be the venue next Feb. 8-9 for a meeting between some small and medium-sized eyewear manufacturers in the Belluna district in Northern Italy and representatives of some major eyewear chains, but this time they will be European retailers. Like last year, when they met a group ...
-
Article
Bourgeois Lets Its General Manager Go
Philippe Castilla, a chartered accountant who had been brought in by the Bourgeois family to help restore profitability to the company at the beginning of 2000, has been let go. Charlie Bourgeois, who is now running the eponymous French firm single-handedly, has hired Deloitte & Touche, the management consultants, to ...
-
Article
Essilor Sells Its Contact Lens Business
Carl Zeiss had recently done the same thing, transferring its own contact lens operations to Bausch & Lomb. The buyer of Essilor's contact lens business, including related cleaning solutions, is Ocular Sciences, the US-based firm that was going to merge with Wesley-Jessen. That merger plan was cancelled with Wesley-Jessen's $785 ...
