Latest Headlines – Page 151
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Stronger Yen Gives Weaker Results At Hoya
The vision care sector of Hoya Corporation reports a 17.1 percent drop in sales to ¥25,628 million (€187.1m-$269.5m) for the first quarter ended June 30. This is the division that makes ophthalmic lenses and frames; the health care division, which produces contact and intraocular lenses and accessories, saw sales rise ...
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Pro Fit Distributes Optixx And Rodenstock Lenses In The U.S.
Pro Fit Optix of Florida has signed a deal to distribute Optixx' lenses in the U.S., starting with its Identity and Upgrade lenses. Identity comes in three progressive designs: standard, outdoor and office, and recently added a degressive version for indoors called Office +. Upgrade is an aspheric individual single-vision ...
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J&J And Ciba Vision Are Hurt By Foreign Currencies
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care's global sales fell by 1.4 percent to $630 million in dollars during the second quarter, but they would have grown by 1.9 percent if currency exchange rates had remained the same. Sales outside the U.S. fell by 3.2 percent in the quarter to $399 ...
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Area Establishes A New Company For Coco Song
Corrado Moro, former general manager of this Italian eyewear producer, has set up a new company called Tesmo International together with an international partner to develop the Coco Song brand on the eyewear market, but also to take it into the jewelry and fashion accessory sectors. Moro will be chief ...
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Visibilia May Drop Jeckerson
Visibilia may not renew its licensing agreement for Jeckerson, the Italian apparel brand owned by Fashion Time, a group that specializes in sports clothing and accessories with what it calls a total sport-chic look. The agreement expires in September 2011, so the decision is not imminent, but may be ended ...
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A.T. Cross' Optical Division Falls, But Not As Much As The Company
A.T. Cross Company reported sales in its optical division down by 4.4 percent to $16.5 million for the second quarter ended July 4. This includes revenues from its eyewear brands, Native Eyewear and Costa Del Mar. For the first six months of the year turnover rose by 5.8 percent to ...
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Gerber Scientific Has Big Drop In Sales For Quarter, Year
The Gerber Coburn ophthalmic lens processing unit of Gerber Scientific saw a 23.5 percent drop in revenues to $14.0 million for the fourth quarter ended April 30, with operating income down by 53.8 percent to $600,000. For the full year, turnover decreased by 19.0 percent to $57.5 million. Net income ...
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Bleak Situation For British Independents
A survey has indicated that 149 independent opticians' practices in the U.S. closed down during the past year and that more are expected to follow suit. Indeed, the estate agency side of Myers La Roche is expecting to sell 120 practices this year, compared with between 40 and 50 in ...
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Specsavers Is Growing Fast In Australia And New Zealand
Specsavers is doing well Down Under. According to the Australian magazine Insight, the British company recently reported that it has already reached a 16.4 percent share of the Australian market on an annualized basis, and the whole group has grown by 325 percent since its launch in February 2008. Specsavers ...
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Mido's New Business Forum In Rome Will Run For Two Days
Mido has scaled down its new mini eyewear show at the end of the summer in Rome. The show was supposed to run for three days from September 4 to 6 at the Rome fairgrounds, but the plan has been shelved. Instead, there will be a smaller event that will ...
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A Slightly Smaller Silmo In September
The Paris show will occupy only three halls instead of four at the earlier than usual edition scheduled for Sept. 17-20, following the pull-out of some important exhibitors and the decision by some others to reduce the surface of their stands. It could not be determined whether their motivations were ...
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New Middle East Show In Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi is going to host a new trade show named Optical Middle East; the first edition is taking place next Oct. 26-28 at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center and is being organized by Mecom Forum, described as the largest trade show organizer in the Middle East. Mecom Forum has ...
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Optotrades Goes Into Liquidation
Optotrades, the Italian buying group that was previously operating also in Spain, has filed for voluntary liquidation, after being cut off from its two major suppliers and the loss of many retail clients. In 2007 the group's centralized invoicing amounted to €22 million, representing about half of the retail members' ...
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Safilo Is Closer To Refinancing Deal, But Not There Yet
The Tabacchi family, which owns nearly 40 percent of Safilo through the holding company Only 3T, is a step closer to a deal with the private equity Bain Capital to recapitalize the eyewear company after this potential investor modified its offer, which had been initially rejected. However, the ...
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Vidivici Is To Be Auctioned Off July 7
A court in Bologna has scheduled the auction of Vidivici's assets for July 7. The assets of the bankrupt Italian company was temporarily leased out in November 2008 to Horizon Vertical, but just one month later this company decided to pull out, and terminated the contract unilaterally, triggering the start ...
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Luxottica Moves Into Latin America
Luxottica Group has an agreement in principle to buy a 40 percent interest in Multiopticas Internacional, giving it entrance into the optical retailing market in South America. The chain has 393 eyewear stores under the names GMO, Econoptics and SunPlanet in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Until now, Luxottica has ...
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Some Management Shifts At Luxottica
Anthonie Klijn has left as Luxottica's country manager for Germany and Austria to run the company's operations in South Africa. He has been replaced by Christian Grund, who ran Oakley's former German subsidiary. In France, Bernard Galan, an experienced executive, has been appointed as the new general ...
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Currency Effects Bring Down Coopervision
The regained strength of the U.S. dollar had an adverse effect on the sales and the gross margins of CooperVision in the second quarter ended April 30. Partly because of new production efficiencies, CVI's operating margins nevertheless rose to 16 percent, up from 12 percent in the same period a ...
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Eyewear Suffers Only Slightly From The Bad Economy
While sales of sunglasses have certainly been affected by the international economic slump, like other fashion items, the need for vision correction seems to have kept sales of ophthalmic lenses and contact lenses relatively high in several markets. In the area of vision correction, a big rebound is expected ...
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British Companies React To The Weaker Pound And The Poor Economy
British optical groups admit that they are getting reduced margins as a result of the lower value of the pound sterling. The resulting increased costs from overseas are not being passed on to British consumers because their disposable income is being squeezed and challenged by the weak economic situation ...
