All Article articles – Page 220
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Coopervision Takes Greater Control In Europe
CooperVision (CVI) has completed the acquisition of its distribution in Spain, Sweden and most recently Norway, joining the UK and Italy as fully controlled operations. Their sales activities will be placed under the management of Ian Bussey, the company's UK-based European general manager, in charge of sales and marketing. Anthony ...
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Essilor Reports Preliminary Results
Essilor raised both sales and operating income by 19 percent last year, thus maintaining its operating margin at 13.8 percent. The pre-tax profit rose by 15 percent to e222 million on a total turnover of e1,979 million. The net income grew by 12 percent to e135 million, but it would ...
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Luxottica Floats Only 2.3 Percent Of Its Equity On The Milan Bourse
Luxottica's share offering on the Milan Bourse was much smaller than the 10-12 percent stake indicated six months ago. Launched on Nov. 28 and closed on Dec. 1, it made only 2.3 percent of the group's equity available for trading on the exchange, for a total of 10,385,000 shares. ...
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Europe Abolishes Corundum Nickel Test, Sets New Rules For Pre-mounted Frames
The European norm for evaluating the nickel content risk in metal spectacle frames has been changed. CEN, the European Union's committee that establishes the technical guidelines for this sort of things, adopted a new procedure largely based on the test method developed by the Italian certification institute, Certottica, at a ...
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Afflelou Negotiates Another Takeover
Confirming a report in the French press, Alain Afflelou says it's in advanced negotiations for the acquisition of another French network of optical stores. Lynx Optical, which was said to be a likely candidate, denies the existence of negotiations. Afflelou has given up on a previous plan to merge with ...
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Metzler Strikes An Alliance With Moulin
Moulin International, the large Chinese eyewear manufacturer, has agreed to acquire a 25.1 percent interest in Metzler, Germany's second-largest eyewear company. The partial takeover, which is being implemented through an unspecified equity increase that will strengthen Metzler's balance sheet, is part of a wide-ranging strategic alliance in production and distribution ...
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Giuliano Tabacchi Sells His Safilo Shares To Vittorio's Heirs And Quits The Board
Giuliano Tabacchi has taken a bow, bringing to a close a long family saga that came to a head last spring when his brother Vittorio resigned as chairman of the board. In a brief statement after a shareholders' meeting on Dec. 12, Safilo announced that the number of directors on ...
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Italian Eyewear Exports Boom Thanks To Ray-ban And General Optica
Italian manufacturers' sales of sunglasses abroad shot up in the first 6 months of this year thanks to Luxottica's acquisition of Ray-Ban, to De Rigo's acquisition of the Spanish General Optica chain and to Marcolin's acquisition of the French Cébé group, rising by 90.7 percent to 715.9 billion lire (e369.8m-$329.5m). ...
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Fedon Continues To Grow
The world's leading supplier of eyeglass cases confirms that it will reach the turnover of 100 billion lire (e51.7m-$46.1m) that it had targeted for 2000, compared with 88 billion lire for the previous year. The final figure is actually likely to be even higher. Fedon is quoted on the over-the-counter ...
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Zeiss' Growth Slows Down
Carl Zeiss is budgeting only a 6 percent sales increase this year to about 4.2 billion DM (e2.1bn-$1.9bn) in group sales, but it plans to invest 50 million DM (e26m-$23m) more on R&D to help speed up its future development in the longer terms. The German group has ...
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Rodenstock Sells Euronet To Visualplex
Essilor, Hoya and Zeiss have all agreed to join the EuroNet Optics network following Rodenstock's decision to sell its own controlling interest in the German-based B-to-B internet platform to a new American e-business specialist, VisualPlex Corp., which wants to launch a similar service in the USA and elsewhere for companies ...
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Pearle Is Doing Well In Europe And Usa
Shopping malls and hypermarkets, particularly brand new ones, are the new segment, alongside city centers, chosen by Pearle Europe to penetrate the Italian market with Ottica Avanzi, acquired last year. A total of 14 new sales outlets have already been opened this year in shopping malls in central and northern ...
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German Suppliers Scrap Second Free Lens
The German Cartel Office has decided not to act against a decision by all the major suppliers of lenses in Germany to stop providing the country's opticians with a free extra sample of every prescription lens for replacement purposes, starting next Jan. 1. Essilor started the action last Summer, and ...
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Sunglass Hut Reports Improved Results
The world's largest chain of sunglass stores reports a 30 percent rise in operating earnings for the 3rd quarter ended Oct. 28 to $8.4 million, as sales increased by 10.6 percent to $146.2 million, with a whopping 7.5 percent gain on a comparable basis. Still, because of extraordinary items, Sunglass ...
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Luxottica Works Without Ysl
From Jan. 1, 2001 on, Luxottica will no longer be producing or distributing Yves Saint Laurent eyewear. Opticians have just a few weeks left to put in new orders for the last collection, as the Italian manufacturer will only sell its remaining stock. It had already reduced the production of ...
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Nickel Decision Is Now Due On Dec. 14
The new European regulations for evaluating the risk factor for the nickel in spectacle frames should be voted at a session of the European Standardization Committee (CEN), scheduled for next Dec. 13-14. Unless the Danish delegation blocks the decision, the new technical norm should no longer make use of corundum, ...
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Afflelou's Acquisition Of Lissac Is Stalled
A vast majority of the 70-plus opticians affiliated with the French Lissac chain of 124 optical stores plan to request at the end of this month a court injunction for the nomination of a new general manager of their franchisor, unless the situation gets clarified by then. As reported, Lissac ...
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Bushnell Reorganizes Its European Operations After Many Acquisitions
Joe Messner, the American executive who led the management buyout of Bushnell in August of 1999, is promoting the adoption of best practice criteria to optimize the synergies among its numerous properties including Bollé, the French-based firm acquired last February, and Serengeti, the American sunglass company that it added to ...
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Dollond & Aitchinson May Roll Out A New Suburban Store Format
Dollond & Aitchinson's success with its new 3,000-square-foot flagship store in Birmingham, which is located on the edge of the city, is leading the UK chain owned by De Rigo to explore opportunities for similar investments in other suburban locations. The store was inaugurated last May, coinciding with the chain's ...
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Fielmann Buys Another Dutch Chain, Reports Double-digit Gains
Fielmann has acquired another chain of optical stores in the Netherlands, Groenveld Brillen en Contaclenzen of Rotterdam, retroactive to last July 1, taking its turnover in the country up to an annualized level of about 8 million DM (e4m-$3.5m). With a network of 5 stores, Groenveld had a net profit ...
