Latest Headlines – Page 146
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Maui Jim Boost Its Management, Makes Peace With Shi
Sunglass Hut International represented annual sales of about $100 million at the retail level for Maui Jim. Last October, the Hawaian-inspired company decided to stop supplying products to the chain, controlled by Luxottica, claiming that its products were not being properly merchandised. The relationship resumed in January after SGH gave ...
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Big Action Around The New York Show
International Vision Expo East, being held on March 19-21, reports that more than 15,200 visitors have pre-registered, about the same as last year. Organizers say that, typically, more than half of all attendees register in the six weeks before the show. The Italian Trade Commission (ICE) and Anfao ...
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Alliance Optique Acquires Rev
The acquisition of a majority stake in Rev allows Alliance Optique to raise their combined share of the French optical retail market to an estimated 15 percent. Both of these French buying groups are based in the northern part of France, near Lille. They are structured in similar ways and ...
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A Couple Of New Internet Platforms Aim To Generate Store Traffic
A total of 400 opticians from all over France have already signed up as «privileged partners» of Optic-Néo, in preparation for the forthcoming launch of its website, easy-verres.com («easy lenses»), one the first ones that don't compete with the traditional optical retail trade. The registration of other partner stores ...
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Eqt May Not Participate In Carl Zeiss Vision's Refinancing
Carl Zeiss Vision is talking to its lenders about a financial reorganization after breaching a loan covenant based on its financial results for the 2008-09 fiscal year, ended last Sept. 30. EQT, the Swedish-controlled equity investment firm, and the Carl Zeiss AG group, which have owned Carl Zeiss Vision in ...
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Hoya Sees Some Problems In Europe, Which Gets A New Manager
Hans Werquin, a 49-year-old manager who has been running its operations in France and Belgium, has been named chief executive of Hoya Vision Care Europe, starting April 1. He will also keep his current positions in Belgium and France, but France Van de Perck (Belgium) and Patrice Pineau (France) will ...
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Alcon Directors Reject Novartis' Bid After A Positive Financial Report
Pointing to the good results reported by the company for the latest quarter, the independent directors' committee of Alcon has rejected the offer made by Novartis to purchase the rest of the shares in the company, finding it to be ?grossly inadequate.? The committee noted that Alcon had outperformed analysts' ...
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Novartis Outperforms The Market
The Swiss group has reported some nice figures for its 2009 financial year, too, performing better than some other pharmaceutical and contact lens companies. Its total revenues rose by 7 percent to $44.3 million and net income increased by 4 percent to $8.5 billion. Net profit related to core activities ...
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Vision Care Lagged Behind J&J's Overall Growth
Johnson & Johnson reports that its vision care division had a 2.7 percent increase in sales for the fourth quarter 2009 to $618 million. At constant currencies, it was a growth of 5.3 percent. Sales outside the U.S. grew by 7.2 percent to $430 million, for a 7.9 percent increase ...
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Pixeloptics Introduces Its High-tech Lenses In Europe
A seasoned industry executive, Peter Zieman, has put together a network of top-class distributors in key European countries for PixelOptics, leading to significant sales of its enhanced multi-focal lenses in composite materials, called atLast!, in this part of the world since last September. The same sales network is gearing up ...
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Safilo Is Close To Completing Its Recapitalization
Safilo is scheduled to complete a €250 million rights issue today as part of a rescue plan involving the Dutch conglomerate Hal Holding. The capital increase is the tail end of a complex operation that started in October after Hal signed a binding agreement to become Safilo's largest shareholder and ...
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Borsalino Eyewear Comes To The Market
Borsalino, renowned worldwide for its famous Borsalino hats, has signed a licensing agreement with Brands O.I., a new Italian company established to produce luxury eyewear with prestigious brand names. Brands O.I. will manufacture and distribute Borsalino sun and prescription frames worldwide, with the contract running to the end of December ...
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Cebe Should Help Bushnell To Get Over The $400 Million Mark
Bushnell Outdoor Products will use the existing sales network of Bollé in an initial phase to relaunch the Cébé brand of sports eyewear, goggles and helmets, which it took over from Marcolin in May 2009. The brand has remained out of the market since December 2007 with the notable exception ...
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Labor Costs Go Up By 7.7 % For The Italian Eyewear Industry
Italy's eyewear industry will gradually implement a 7.7 percent increase in wages under a new national labor contract for 2010-2013 that compensates for inflation in the past two years. This represents an average of €105 a month on a worker's pay cheque. It brings the average gross pay ...
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Ola Merges Into The Vision Council
The Vision Council of the U.S. is merging with the Optical Laboratories Association, the American association of ophthalmic laboratories. One result of the merger will be that OLA will start having its annual convention alongside the International Vision Expo West fair in Las Vegas, instead of holding its ...
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Luxottica Is Upbeat About 2010
Luxottica is entering the new year with confidence after booking strongly improved sales in the fourth quarter of 2009. The company said that the last two months of 2009 were particularly positive and it expects a «return to normal» in terms of sales growth, higher profitability and debt reduction this ...
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Rodenstock Introduces New Eyewear Lines
Rodenstock confirms that it has taken over the licenses for Alfred Dunhill and Mercedes-Benz eyewear from Allison, which decided not to renew them last year, claiming that they were not generating enough turnover. The respective lines will be presented by Rodenstock at the Mido show in Milan in March. ...
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Alcon's Minority Shareholders Want More To Sell To Novartis
Novartis has agreed to buy Nestle's remaining shares in Alcon ? a 52 percent stake ? for $180 per share, or $28.1 billion. It also has proposed to acquire the remaining 23 percent of shares that it does not already own in exchange for shares, with the intention of merging ...
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Essilor Continues To Gobble Up Labs And Lens Makers
In its global expansion bid, Essilor International has signed 10 acquisition or partnership agreements since last October. In Europe, Essilor's subsidiary Novisia, exclusive distributor of Nikon for ophthalmic lenses in continental Europe, has bought a majority stake in Mont-Royal, a French lens distributor with a sophisticated laboratory in the Lorraine ...
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Zeiss Vision Sees Slight Drop In Sales
The fiscal year 2008-09 ended last September with a 3 percent drop in sales at Carl Zeiss Vision, with a final tally of €879 million, but profits and the cash position remained positive, according to company officials. In fact, the company had 9.2 percent fewer employees with a total of ...
