All Article articles – Page 226
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Marcolin Reports 15% Profit Increase, Counts On Its House Brands
The Marcolin group managed to raise its net profit by 15 percent last year to 8 billion lire (e m-$m), and it's not expected to change much this year, due to the growing downward pressure on prices and margins being exerted by the advent of the euro. In the longer ...
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De Rigo Reports A Profit For 1999
The costly acquisition of the Dollond & Aitchinson chain in the UK, currency exchange losses and extraordinary charges didn't prevent the Italian eyewear producer from posting a net profit of 2,722 million lire ($1.4m) in 1999, but it was still down 69.5 percent from the previous year's level. Without goodwill ...
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Mido Celebrates 30th Anniversary
The Mido fair in Milan is celebrating the event next May 5-8 with a special edition that will welcome 100 new exhibitors. The largest eyewear show in the world - with 38,000 visitors in 1999 - will showcase the products of a total of 1,100 exhibitors from 34 countries. Each ...
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Safilo Raises Net By 42%, Denies Rumors Of Takeover Plans By Luxottica
Safilo experienced an exceptional 42 percent growth in net earnings to 66.2 billion ( 34.18 million) in 1999, before an exceptional gain from deferred taxes of 6.2 billion lire (e m-$m) which brought the bottomline up to 72.5 billion lire (e m-$m). It was accompanied by a nice increase in ...
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Analysts Have Mixed Views About Essilor, Which Looks At The Long Term
Essilor International's stockmarket quotation in Paris remains stagnant below e300 a share in spite of its recent confirmation of better-than-expected financial results for 1999. One of the reasons may be the new realignment of publicly quoted firms across Europe, which has reduced Essilor from a high-cap to a mid-cap company ...
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Afflelou Considers Equity Change
Sounds like the Lamy family's recent buyback of L'Amy Eyewear. French press reports indicate that Alain Afflelou, chairman of the French chain of optical stores that bears his own name, could regain its control before the end of April with the support of new financial backers. In 1997, a group ...
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Internet Retailer Distributes Lumen Eyewear In North America
Lumen, the 2-year-old affordable sports eyewear brand of Austria's Metzler Design Brillenvertrieb, will be distributed in North America under an exclusive 5-year agreement by xdogs.com, a US importer and e-tailer of other trendy European sports and outdoor brands such as Berghaus outdoor clothing and Oxbow surfwear. Besides putting the ...
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Bausch & Lomb Offers To Buy Wesley Jessen, Blocking Bid For Ocular Sciences
The contact lens market is moving toward greater consolidation with a potentially hostile bid by Bausch & Lomb for Wesley Jessen VisionCare, the leading American manufacturer of colored contact lenses. B&L filed the $600 million offer shortly after Wesley Jessen announced on March 20 a deal to acquire Ocular Sciences ...
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Ittierre's New Eyewear Firm Is Born
Last March 17, Itierre Holding, an Italian fashion group involved mainly in the clothing business through a number of major brands and quoted on the Milan stock exchange, finally completed its entry into the eyewear sector with the merger of the two firms it had acquired last year for 18.3 ...
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French Low-priced Chain Is Set For Growth, ?And For Electronic Shopping
Tati Optic, a new French chain of low-priced optical stores, is set to grow to a network of 15 outlets by the end of this year, and then reach a total of 40 units in France and its overseas territories by June of 2002, following a successful pilot run with ...
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Ciba Vision Closes A German Factory
Ciba Vision is going to stop next October the production of contact lens care products for the European market at a unit in Munich that employs 87 persons. Part of the production will be moved to the company's factory in Annonay, France, creating between 30 and 34 new jobs there. ...
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Italy's Industry Limits Its Export Losses
According to the latest available figures, which go through last September, the Italian eyewear industry, which exports 70 percent of its own production, has begun to contain the heavy losses suffered on its export markets up until last August. The rate of decline has in fact softened from 10 to ...
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Specsavers Plans Major Grow In Holland
After some adjustments, a successful pilot test with 3 shops in Holland has led Specsavers to budget the addition of about 55 new stores in that country by the end of 2001. Specsavers already has 11 stores in Ireland. The expansion makes sense for this unique British chain of joint ...
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Allergan Raises Sales By 16.8% In Quarter, Driven By Pharmaceutical Products
Allergan raised its sales by 9.8 percent to $380.3 million in the 4th quarter ended Dec. 31. In constant currencies, sales would have risen by 14 percent. In constant currencies and exclusing sales of certain skin care products that were divested or licensed out in the 1st half of 1999, ...
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Salmoiraghi Plans To Double In 3 Years
Salmoiraghi & Vigano, the only large Italian chain of optical shops, plans to invest 20 billion lire (e10m) a year between now and 2002, in order to double the number of sales outlets from the current 110 stores to 220. As we have previously reported, Salmoiraghi pulled out of ...
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Rodenstock Grows By More Than 6%
In a preliminary report, Rodenstock says it raised its sales by more than 6 percent last year on a comparable basis, taking into account the divestiture of its instruments and machinery divisions as part of a strategy to concentrate on the spectacle business. In absolute terms, the German group's revenues ...
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Munich Scores Well In German Battle Of The Fairs
The young new Opti Munich fair reports a 40.1 percent increase in the number of buyers and other visitors for its 3rd session, held at the M,O,C, fairgrounds last Jan. 14-16, as compared to the 2nd edition one year ago. Attendance increased from all parts of Germany, not just the ...
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Improving Zeiss May Change Status
The future status of the Carl Zeiss Foundation is under evaluation, taking into consideration fiscal and other aspects. Nobody owns at present the foundation, which is the sole owner of the Carl Zeiss optical group and of Schott, a major German manufacturer of household goods and glass materials, some of ...
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Sola Looks For A New Chief Executive
John E. Heine has decided to step down as president and CEO of Sola International, but he has agreed to continue in this position until a successor is found and appointed. He will also remain on the company's board of directors. The new CEO is expected to take drastic ...
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German Consumption And Lens Exports Are Rising
A steady increase in German eyewear consumption is forecast by the German association of opticians (Zva) following a survey of 100 optical stores throughout the country. It indicates an increase in retail sales of 5 percent in 1999 to 7.5 billion DM (e3.8bn-$3.7bn). Carried out at the beginning of ...
