All Corporate articles – Page 6
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News briefs
J.F. REY sales up double-digit since takeover
Maison JEAN-FRANÇOIS REY has announced that, since the change of ownership a year ago, the company’s sales have been growing at double-digit rate from the €14 million base reported for 2021. As reported last year, the Marseilles-based eyewear company is in the hands of a Franco-German trio consisting of Walter ...
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News briefs
New owners for WestGroupe
Canadian healthcare organization Fyi Health Group has announced that it was acquiring WestGroupe, the Montreal-based eyewear manufacturer and distributor. Fyi is active in the eyecare and medical aesthetics’ sectors. The group operates the Fyidoctors eye clinics in Canada and the U.S. as well as other smaller optometry and optical retail ...
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ArticleJimmy Fairly to boost retail network, enter 3 new countries
Jimmy Fairly, the French-based and vertically integrated eyewear brand, has announced plans to more than double its number of stores in France and the U.K. by 2025 and to enter three new European countries in the coming months. Founded in 2011 by two young French entrepreneurs, Antonin Chartier and Sacha ...
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Visottica issues a €5m bond
Visottica Group, the Italian-based supplier of eyewear components, has issued a €5 million bond to support its future growth and investments, the company announced at the end of August. The emitted bond was placed by the Intesa Sanpaolo bank and will mature in 2029. Giovanni Montalban, CEO of Visottica, stressed ...
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ArticleMaterialise sees its eyewear volumes triple within 5 years
Created in 2014, the eyewear division of Materialise, the Belgian-based 3D printing specialist, has introduced several innovations for 3D-printed glasses and has established itself as the market leader in the field. Ahead of the Silmo trade show, we sat down with Alireza Parandian, the unit’s manager, to reflect on the ...
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ArticleFielmann invests €65 m in high-tech facility in Czech Republic
The Fielmann Group announced a €65 million investment for a new high-tech eyewear manufacturing and logistics facility in Chomutov in the Czech Republic to support its European growth efforts. The company said that it would produce customised, refined prescription lenses at the new site and mount them into frames sourced ...
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News briefsSynsam returns production to Sweden
Synsam has opened what it calls the first large-scale factory for eyewear frames in the Nordics. The Production and Innovation Center results from the group’s decision in 2020 to shift production from China back to Sweden. To achieve this objective it has refurbished the air flotilla’s Hangar 90 at Frösö ...
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News briefs
Lentesplus acquires Brazilian DTC eyewear brand
Lentesplus, the Colombia-based omnichannel retailer, is pursuing its expansion in Latin America and in the eyewear segment with the acquisition of Livo, a Brazilian direct-to-consumer brand of eyeglasses and sunglasses. Launched in 2012, Livo was the first vertically integrated and digitally native eyewear company in the country. It currently operates ...
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News briefs
Del Vecchio donates 2.15 million EssilorLuxottica shares to Milleri
Italian news agency ANSA has reported that Leonardo Del Vecchio has left 2.15 million EssilorLuxottica shares, or 0.5 percent of the company’s capital, to his successor Francesco Milleri. At the group’s current stock price, the donation is worth about €340 million. The news was confirmed by an EssilorLuxottica spokesman, Bloomberg ...
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ArticleWalmart enters partnership with Waldo
Walmart has established a partnership with Waldo, a company in London that delivers contact lenses by subscription. The deal with Walmart concerns in particular Waldo’s Hydra Boost Daily lenses, which deliver vitamins such as B12 to the eye of the wearer. On July 26 Walmart began selling a pack of ...
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News briefs
Bernard Arnault to reinforce control over LVMH parent company
The French businessman Bernard Arnault plans to transform Financière Agache, a family holding company which controls the French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, into a limited partnership. The move will enable the businessman and his five children to maintain control over the group, including Thélios. LVMH took full control of the ...
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ArticleEssilux partners with Polimi on €50 m smart eyewear R&D center
EssilorLuxottica and Politecnico di Milano, or Polimi as it is often called, have announced the launch of a joint R&D partnership focusing on the development of smart glasses and related technologies. Dubbed Smart Eyewear Lab and located in Milan, Italy, the project will initially last five years and will eventually ...
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News briefs
Italia Independent to lay off 29 employees
Italia Independent Group, the Italian maker and distributor of eyewear and sunglasses, has informed the trade unions that it will lay off 29 employees of its site in Venaria Reale, near Turin, where it has its headquarters and a warehouse. The decision is part of the restructuring plan that the ...
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News briefs
Mitsui Chemicals co-founds VC fund
Mitsui Chemicals of Tokyo – maker of lens materials and coatings, among many other products – has established a venture capital fund with the independent Japanese VC firm Global Brain Corporation. Called 321FORCE, the fund will be investing in start-ups in Mitsui’s four business lines (life & healthcare, mobility, ICT ...
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News briefs
ic berlin acquires German startup’s carbon-fiber technology
ic! berlin has acquired the assets of Kerl Eyewear, a startup company created five years ago by two friends, Jaromir Ufer and Johannes Dillinger, in Göttingen, Germany. The acquisition includes Kerl Eyewear’s know-how and carbon-fiber technology. The company has developed FLEXCARBON, a proprietary carbon material inspired by aerospace engineering and ...
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ArticleParis Miki to invest €50m in 3-year turnaround plan
Paris Miki revenues inched up to 44.1 billion Japanese yen (€308m) in its fiscal year ended in March 2022, a 0.5 percent increase compared to the previous year. It is only the second time in the last decade that the retailer saw its sales go up year-on-year as the group’s ...
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News briefs
New share buyback plan at EssilorLuxottica
EssilorLuxottica has announced the launch of a share buyback program for the purchase through a mandated investment services’ provider of up to 2,500,000 of its shares, or about 0.6 percent of all outstanding shares, between June 17 and August 2022. The right to launch such programs was authorized by the ...
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ArticleKering Eyewear sets €2bn annual revenue target
As part of its capital markets day last week, French luxury group Kering presented an update on the business of Kering Eyewear, announcing a midterm revenue target of €2 billion per year, compared to €706 million in 2021, and an EBIT margin of over 15 percent. The group also shared ...
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ArticleLenskart starts a $100 m fund for DTC eyewear brands
Lenskart, the Indian omnichannel retailer and eyewear manufacturer, has created a $100 million fund dedicated to investments in direct-to-consumer (DTC) eyewear brands as the company believes that the market is now “ripe for a tech-enabled global transformation”. Drawing a comparison with other sectors that have been deeply transformed by e-commerce ...
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News briefs
Innovative Eyewear updates plans for IPO
Last month Innovative Eyewear of Miami, Florida, filed a new preliminary prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an eventual IPO on the NASDAQ. No date is yet specified for the public offering, but the offering price will lie between $5.50 and $7.50 per unit. Based on ...
