All Corporate articles – Page 14
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Visionix and Right MFG partner
Visionix (formerly Luneau Technology) and Right MFG have entered a long-term exclusive partnership for Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific, except Japan and China. The agreement is aimed at combining the former’s distribution network with the latter’s development and production. On Jan. 1, 2023, all Righton products will be folded into ...
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ArticleOut Of to accelerate optical distribution
Out Of has signed a sponsorship deal with Paolo Bettini, the former professional cyclist, who was Olympic champion at the 2004 games in Athens and back-to-back world champion in 2006 and 2007. Bettini will be wearing the brand’s eyewear throughout the 2022 season. The Italian start-up was founded by two ...
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ArticleBausch + Lomb sees 5% organic sales growth in Q1 as IPO wraps up
Bausch Health sold 35 million common Bausch + Lomb shares, or a 10.0 percent stake, at a price of $18.00 per share, in an initial public offering yielding gross proceeds of $630 million and valuing its subsidiary at about $6,300 million. Joseph Papa, chairman of Bausch Health and CEO of ...
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ArticleLentesplus raises $9m for development in LATAM
Lentesplus, a Bogota-based company specializing in online retail of contact lenses, raised $9 million last month in order to further expand its footprint in Latin America as well as to accelerate its transition to a vertically-integrated omnichannel business model and to develop its eyeglasses’ catalog. Founded seven years ago by ...
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Kering issues dual-tranche bond
Kering announced on April 29 that it had issued a dual-tranche bond, each tranche being worth €750 million. One has a three-year maturity and a 1.25 percent coupon, the other an eight-year maturity and a 1.875 percent coupon. The group says the issue is in accordance with its active liquidity ...
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Bausch + Lomb to be spun off in IPO
Bausch Health Companies is spinning off Bausch + Lomb Corporation. The announcement came on April 28 that Bausch + Lomb would be making an initial public offering of 35.0 million common shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”), under the ticker symbol BLCO ...
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Bausch + Lomb to contract $2.7 bn loan before IPO
Bausch Heatlh has announced that its subsidiary Bausch + Lomb was looking into securing a new credit agreement ahead of its Initial Public Offering (IPO), scheduled to take place in the course of this year. The company is seeking to contract a $2.5 billion term B loan and an additional ...
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ArticleLens maker Shamir invests in eye tracker Blink
Shamir Optical, manufacturer of progressive and single-vision lenses and molds, is purchasing a stake in Blink Technologies, a company headquartered in the tech-rich city of Palo Alto, California, and whose chief product is software that tracks eye movements across screens and makes it possible to use such movements to perform ...
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ArticleChristopher Cloos swaps shares for ads with U.S. media group
Christopher Cloos, a Danish-based brand of sunglasses and prescription eyewear, has signed an unusual share deal with a360 Media, a U.S. publisher of magazines and websites focusing on celebrities’ news and health and fitness. The eyewear company has agreed to sell 9 percent of its shares to the media house ...
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ArticleKRYS GROUP announces €50 million investment plan
The KRYS GROUP reported a 18.5 percent year-on-year increase in network sales of optical products and hearing aids to a total of €1,199 million, including VAT, for 2021. As compared to the pre-Covid 2019 reference year, stores sales were up by 7.8 percent. The hearing-aids Krys Audition unit saw its ...
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Maison Morel to receive French subsidy
Maison Morel will be among the selected beneficiaries of the “France Relance” fund for production-related investments. Hoping to stimulate the economy, the French government has earmarked €30 million for ecology, €34 million for competitiveness and €36 million for social cohesion. The subsidy was announced by French prime minister Jean Castex ...
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U.S. sunglass brand Knockaround attracts capital
Brand Holdings LLC has completed a growth equity investment in Knockaround. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Diego, California, Knockaround produces polarized sunglasses, blue-light blocking glasses, ski and snowboard goggles, and custom designs. Its founder, Adam Moyer, describes it as a “fun and functional sunglasses brand” that is “both ...
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Safilo reaches deal for layoffs at Longarone
Safilo has reached an agreement with employee representatives regarding around 120 redundancies at its Longarone manufacturing plant in Northern Italy. Requests of voluntary departures have to be presented by March 11, with effective departures scheduled by March 31. The restructuration plan presented in 2020 by the company called for about ...
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Prats achieves total automation
The Spanish multinational Prats has completed what it calls the world’s most automated production line for ophthalmic lenses. It has set down the final puzzle piece at its logistical hub in Madrid, where a robot now both warehouses the produced lenses and dispatches them to the proper agencies for transport. ...
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ArticleAlain Afflelou family holding doubles its stake in the group
The Afflelou group announced at the end of last month that Alain Afflelou’s family holding acquired in December 2021 the company stake that was indirectly held by Apax France. Earlier in January, Altamir, a partner company of Apax, had announced that it had sold its shares in the group for ...
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Ross Holdings divests Mondottica Int’l.
At the end of December, Ross Holdings relinquished its share of the ownership of Mondottica International, the eyewear company headquartered in Hong Kong. At the same time, Harry Ross, who not only owns Ross Holdings but also founded both Viva International Group and Mondottica USA, stepped down as Mondottica International’s ...
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MEI expands into Japan
MEI, the Italian-based lens edging machines company, has established a subsidiary, MEI Nippon, in Japan, appointing Gian Piero Citti to lead it as general manager. This is the company’s fourth subsidiary outside Italy. The first, MEI Inc., opened in Chicago in 2007. There followed MEIsystem Asia, in Hong Kong, and ...
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Essilux launches share buyback plan
EssilorLuxottica will be buying back some 1,500,000 shares of its stock from Feb. 1 to March 31. Total shares purchased will depend on market conditions. The shares will be awarded or transferred to the employees and corporate directors of Essilux or affiliated companies, through profit-sharing, stock options, bonuses or the ...
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Article1-800 Contacts puts new vision tech company into orbit
1-800 Contacts, the U.S. direct-to-consumer contact lens company, has announced the creation of a new company focused on providing technologies and services to third parties in the vision sector. The new entity, called Luna Solutions, operates as a separate company held under a common holding company with 1-800 Contacts. The ...
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ArticleMicrooled is planning an IPO
Microoled, producer of micro-displays, is planning an IPO on the Euronext Growth Paris market. The company announced on Jan. 11 that its registration document had been approved by the AMF, France’s financial markets authority. As we have reported – in a story on one of its clients, the French producer ...
