Latest Headlines – Page 185
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Oakley's New Sunglasses Sell Well
Oakley's newest sunglass styles, including Crosshair, Whisker, Bottlecap, Gascan and Riddle, generated 65.6 percent higher sales in the 2nd quarter of this year than last year's new sunglass releases, helping the company to achieve better results in this important period of the year, although the European business continued to lag ...
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Hoya Recovers In Germany, Too
Confirming the analyses of Essilor and Fielmann (see articles above), Hoya mentions ?a sign of slow recovery? in the German market during its 1st quarter ended June 30. Other markets in Europe and the USA showed an indication of growth, too, according to the Japanese firm. Growth in the Asia ...
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Bausch & Lomb Improves, Sells Wöhlk
The management of Wöhlk, a German supplier of contact lenses, has bought back the business from Bausch & Lomb, which had taken over the company in 2000 from Carl Zeiss. Wöhlk, which employs about 180 people, will continue to operate under Lothar Haasel from its headquarters at Schönkirchen. ...
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Clearlab Pushes Asian Sales
ClearLab has appointed Michael Sausman to a new position as sales director for the Asia Pacific region. A former managing director of Lunelle, he has left as vice president of business development for the Asia-Pacific region at CooperVision . ClearLab generated total sales of $4.6 million in the 2nd ...
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Visionix Goes Private
An extraordinary general meeting of Visionix's shareholders has approved a proposal to merge the company with two other entities, Luneau Management and Luneau Merger Sub, resulting in a management buyout that will lead the company to go private and to be de-listed from the Frankfurt stock exchange by the end ...
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New Fair In Germany? Hard To Believe
ZVA, the German optical retailers' association, circulated a statement at the end of July indicating that it was talking to Messe Berlin about holding a new eyewear fair in the German capital, adding that it was going to talk about this to Spectaris, the German eyewear industry association. Officials of ...
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Investors Target Individual Assets Of Moulin In Provisional Liquidation
The provisional liquidators of Moulin Global Eyecare Holdings and industry sources indicate that about a dozen different potential investors, including several investment companies and the likes of Hal Trust and Eschenbach, have expressed some interest in taking over some of the spoils of the Hong Kong-based group. Evidently, Moulin has ...
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Hal And Luxottica Buy Up Chinese Retail Chains
Hal Holdings, which is already a dominant factor in the European optical retail market through Pearle Europe and GrandVision, has shifted its focus to the large Chinese market by signing a deal to buy a 70 percent interest in Shanghai Redstar Optical Co. through a subsidiary, Hal Investments Asia. Redstar ...
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Specsavers Enters Denmark And Norway
Specsavers has acquired the 32-store Louis Nielsen chain in Denmark in its first investment in the country. The 9-year-old integrated chain is already a leader in the market for affordable eyecare in Denmark, with an estimated market share of 20 percent in volume and 10 percent in value in the ...
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Grandvision And Specsavers Seek A Role In The Hearing Aids Market
GrandVision has inaugurated a sophisticated GrandAudition store on Paris' plush Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées, not far from the flagship store of its GrandOptical chain of high-end optical stores. Like GrandOptical, the new 500-square-meter pilot store offers a pair of customized digital hearing aids in one hour, in contrast with a classical ...
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Alain Afflelou Reports Improved Results
The French franchisor' net profit increased by 12.6 percent to €26 million in the financial year ended last Apr. 30 before goodwill amortization. It was nearly stable at €22.8 million after goodwill. The gross profit went up by 15.5 percent to €50.6 million, with a 21.3 percent increase for Alain ...
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Essilor Acquires Definity
The pundits had given for certain the fact that Johnson & Johnson was going to acquire Rodenstock, which is more or less on the selling block, as a means of expanding the distribution of its Definity brand of personalized progressive lenses. The line has not yet enjoyed much popularity since ...
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China Time Investment Buys Swank
China Time Investment Holding (CTIH), a mining group based in Yunnan, China, has purchased 60 percent of Swank in a deal valuing the company at HK$93.6 million (€10.1m-$12.0m). Indicating that the transaction is purely of a financial nature, Swank says the purchase will have no effect on its plans, its ...
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Europe And North America Drive Improvements At Elegance
Elegance International saw its turnover rise by 23.7 percent to HK$405.5 million (€43.6m-$52.2m) for the 12-month period ended March 31, and its net earnings nearly doubled to HK$36.8 million (€4.0m-$4.7m). Net profit margins strengthened to 9.1 percent against 5.8 percent, even though gross margin declined to 25 percent from 27.1 ...
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Alain Mikli Develops Franchising And Seeks Higher Price Points
Alain Mikli is developing a new distribution strategy aimed at increasing its geographic coverage and at enhancing its high-end positioning in the market, mainly through franchises and other partnership with selected opticians. At present there is only one franchised Alain Mikli shop, located in Paris, but by the ...
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Coopervision Plans New Hydrogel Releases
CooperVision plans to introduce an improved ?second generation? of silicon hydrogel contact lenses in the 2nd half of 2005, starting with a line of spheres that will be marketed first in Europe. Its Proclear range of products will be vastly expanded over the next 12-36 months, adding for example toric ...
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Italy's Good Performance In Sunglasses Balances Out Lower Frame Exports
The Italian eyewear industry generated €1,529 million worth of exports in 2004, representing an increase of 1 percent year-on-year and 81.5 percent of its total revenues of €1,876 million, which grew by 0.3 percent. Sunglasses covered almost two-thirds of total exports, which were up by 6 percent to €906 million, ...
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Improving Safilo Closes Three Out Of Seven Italian Plants
Safilo presented a plan to the trade unions last month that entails the closure of three factories in order to optimize efficiencies and to reduce costs. Between 2005 and 2006 its domestic production will be concentrated on four of the seven manufacturing facilities the group currently operates in Italy. The ...
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Marcolin Pins Hopes On Tom Ford And Ferrari After A Negative Quarter
Marcolin will lay off between 35 and 40 of the 110 people employed at Cébé International, the French sports eyewear company that it bought in 1999. Cébé, which had 4 percent lower sales of €23.3 million last year, will maintain the production of ski goggles at its factory at Frasnes, ...
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Hoya Vision Care Moves World Headquarters To Holland
Gerald W. Bottero, a 46-year-old American executive who was placed in charge of Hoya Vision Care in North America in June 2004, has been promoted as president of Hoya Vision Care's international operations, with effect from Apr. 1. Bottero has replaced a Japanese executive, Satoru Kuki, who has taken up ...
