Latest Headlines – Page 174
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Trenti Expands And Purchases Modesign
Trenti, a children's eyewear specialist based in the Cadore region of Italy that has won two Golden SILMO Awards in recent years, has acquired a controlling interest of over 50 percent in Modesign, a company in nearby Pieve di Cadore that has been manufacturing plastic frames since 1979. In 2005 ...
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Japan Can Be An Interesting Market For Foreign Frame Suppliers
Famous for its original necklaces and other rather original eyewear accessories, Centro Style had an unexpected success at its first show at IOFT, clocking in orders worth €80,000 from numerous Japanese and Korean retailers, plus a big order from a Chinese chain. Five Japanese companies and a Korean one indicated ...
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New Owners For Opti München
Opti-München is going to have a new owner and operator, starting with the 2008 edition. O.K. Messe, the Salzburg-based company that started the new Munich fair in 1998, winning the competition against Optika in Cologne, will continue to be responsible for the 2007 edition, scheduled for Jan. 26-28. Arno Jäger ...
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Hal Acquires More Critical Mass In Germany
Fielmann, which remains the largest factor in the German optical retail market, is getting some new competition. HAL Holding has made another acquisition in Fielmann's home market by taking over Krane-Optik & Akustik, while a large French buying group is believed to be looking at entering the country within the ...
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Fielmann Remains Optimistic
Germany's largest optical retailer recorded a pre-tax profit of €48.1 million for the first six months of this year, or 38.2 percent more than in the same period of last year. The company anticipates a clear rise in sales and profits for the full year. Analysts are predicting pre-tax profit ...
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Afflelou Makes More Profit
The French franchising company, which is now controlled by Bridgepoint, improved its net profit by 32.8 percent to €30.2 million for the year ended last Apr. 30. The gross profit rose by 15.9 percent to €75.2 million, with increases of 12.7 percent in the contribution from its franchising services and ...
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Optical Shop Of Aspen Adds Doors Amid New Details On Oakley's Purchase
The Optical Shop of Aspen (OSA) is on the verge of raising the number of its high-end eyewear operations from 15 to 23. The retailer, which was recently acquired by Oakley, is finalizing a deal with an outlet in East Hampton, New York, called The Visionary, that would turn the ...
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Boots Opticians Closes Glazing Centers, Worries About Fat People's Sight
Boots Opticians will close all of its 28 regional glazing centers and outsource the related operations to Hoya over the next three months. The decision follows a two-month trial period that involved 29 Boots practices working with Hoya Lens UK, which has invested heavily in new facilities over the past ...
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Essilor May Be Interested In Rodenstock
Permira has given a mandate to Drücker, a Frankfurt-based investment advisor, to sound out potential bidders for its own 85 percent controlling interest in Rodenstock, whose results have been improving faster than expected. Anyhow Xavier Fontanet, chairman and chief executive of Essilor International, said a few days ago that he ...
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Essilor Sees Ebit Margin Over 17%
While announcing some more acquisitions of its own, Essilor International reported a 12.6 percent increase in net profit for the 1st half of 2006 to €164.1 million, representing a net margin of 12.0 percent. Thanks to the very strong sales growth enjoyed during the period, the operating margin (EBIT) remained ...
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Christian Dalloz Sunoptics Changes Hands
Bacou-Dalloz, the large personal protection and safety specialist in which Essilor has a minority stake, has sold its subsidiary Christian Dalloz Sunoptics to Hervé Meillat, a former company executive who has been working as a consultant in the USA recently. Based in the Jura region of France, the operation ...
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Nobert Gorny Replaces Jeremy Bishop At The Head Of Carl Zeiss Vision
Jeremy Bishop, the Australian executive who had previously run SOLA International out of its headquarters in San Diego, is leaving as chief executive of Carl Zeiss Vision International, the group that came out of the merger of SOLA and its American Optical subsidiary with Carl Zeiss' ophthalmic business in March ...
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Ed Greene Fills Bill Thomas' Leading Role At The Head Of Vca
Bill Thomas has somewhat unexpectedly resigned as chief executive of Vision Council of America after 10 very fruitful years at the head of the U.S. trade association. He oversaw the merger in 1999 of the former Vision Industry Council of America and the Optical Manufacturers Association. Under Thomas, the number ...
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Marcolin Reports Higher Revenues But Is Not Yet Back In Profit
The results posted for the 2nd quarter and the 1st half of 2006 indicated that Marcolin may well be about to come out of the tunnel it got dragged into when it lost the Dolce & Gabbana brands out to Luxottica, with a short transition period until Dec. 31 2005. ...
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Market Share Lost By Cooper In The Americas Is Made Up Elsewhere
Stiff competition from Johnson & Johnson has caused CooperVision and other major players like CIBA Vision and Bausch & Lomb to lose share in the U.S. soft contact lens market, according to Cooper Companies' management. J&J has seen success in this market with its high-priced silicone hydrogel lens, the Oasis, ...
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Eyeing The U.S. Market, Clearlab May Separate From Its Parent
The young manufacturing arm of 1-800 Contacts outside of the USA plans to launch globally a new product, the AquaSoft Singles, whose special packaging allows users to carry some 30 soft lens in a single small packet. ClearLab has high hopes for the product, which will be the first sold ...
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J&J Invests In Its Irish Acuvue Factory
With support from IDA Ireland, an Irish government agency responsible for securing new investment, J&J is investing €100 million into its Vistakon subsidiary in Ireland that manufactures Acuvue contact lenses. The investment will increase production capacity and create an estimated 124 new positions in engineering, quality control and manufacturing. The ...
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Gerber Coburn Improves Customer Service
Gerber Coburn has appointed a manager of customer service and applications to build a new team of field application engineers, to manage the company's technical telephone support team and to establish new best practices and policies for the ophthalmic industry. The new manager is John Ingriselli, who has been with ...
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Silmo Adds Several New Features
Visitors at next month's SILMO fair, running in Paris from Oct. 27 to Oct. 30, will be able to watch the live beginning of a yacht race on a big screen, stumble through a darkened tour of the blind's eye and romp through a children's area while brushing up on ...
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Two Chief Executives Take Over The Reins At Safilo, While Margins Slide
Still chaired by 67-year-old Vittorio Tabacchi, Safilo's board of directors has in fact voted in favor of a resolution that promotes his 35-year-old son Massimiliano as ?co-chief executive? of the company. He will run Safilo in tandem with 50-year-old Claudio Gottardi, appointed as chief executive. an Italian executive who will ...
