Latest Headlines – Page 188
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GUILDINVEST GROWS EVEN FASTER The opticians affiliated with Guildinvest,...
GUILDINVEST GROWS EVEN FASTER The opticians affiliated with Guildinvest, the French buying group comprising the Krys, Lynx Optique, Vision Plus, and Vision Originale chains, raised their combined turnover by 12 percent to €771 million in 2004, up 8 percent on a comparable basis. Excluding the hearing aids banner, Entendre, ...
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The Spanish Market Grew By 5%
The Spanish optical market is livelier than most of the other markets in Western Europe, thanks in part to strong promotional efforts by the country's industry association, FEDAO. It rose by 5 percent to more than €1.5 billion in 2004, with increases of 8 percent for contact lenses, 6.5 percent ...
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Coopervision Reorganizes Management After Merger With Ocular Sciences
CooperVision has set up a new European sales and marketing organization following its merger with Ocular Sciences, which was completed on Jan. 6. On the sales side, the combined operations of the two companies in Europe will be led by Andrew Sedgwick in the UK for Northern Europe and Giacomo ...
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Fedon Boosts The Management
Fedon has appointed Gesuino Cossu as its worldwide CEO in a newly created position as part of its international expansion. Cossu joined the company last month and reports to Callisto Fedon, who is still the company's president and who has delegated some of his management responsibility to Cossu. Before joining ...
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B. Robinson Works With Kenmark
B. Robinson and Kenmark have signed a strategic alliance to collaborate on the design and distribution of a new Cynthia Rowley eyewear collection that is being launched in the USA later this Spring. The alliance is capitalizing on the design know-how of B. Robinson and Kenmark's distribution channels, which should ...
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Luxottica Sees Growth Potential Ahead
Luxottica is going to produce more outside Italy and explore expansion opportunities in high-growth markets such as China and Russia under the management of Andrea Guerra, the company's new CEO, who addressed analysts a few days ago in presenting excellent results for the company in 2004. However, strong sales growth ...
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Moulin's Private Placement Fails, But Ecca's Purchase Should Go Ahead
Despite the failure of a HK$520 million (€51.2m-$66.7m) share placement early this month, Moulin International says it can carry out the $450 million purchase of 56 percent of the Eye Care Centers of America retail chain in the USA by using bank borrowings and cash reserves. The deal should be ...
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Electronics Lift Oakley's Revenues
Oakley has reported net income of $41,550,000 for the 2004 financial year, up 9 percent. Revenues increased by 10.9 percent to $585.47 million. Domestic sales rose by 58 percent to $62.1 million, including a 15 percent increase in sales to Sunglass Hut and a 66 percent increase in sales to ...
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Kaenon Comes To Europe
Kaenon Polarized has signed an exclusive sales, marketing and distribution deal with a French company, Akenao, for the countries belonging to the European Union with the exception of the UK which is being handled by a separate distributor. Akenao is a company set up and run by Eric Ly-Ky, who ...
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Spy Optic's Distribution Evolves In France And Italy
Both markets were previously handled by distributors. Spy Optic, which already had a European sales and distribution center in Italy, set up a sales subsidiary in the country on Jan. 1 to handle directly its sales in Italy as well as France in order to boost sales and add new ...
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De Rigo's Retail Operations Continue To Develop Well
De Rigo has reported net sales of €514.4 million for 2004, an increase of 1.9 percent as compared to the previous year, but they rose by only 1.0 percent in terms of local currencies due to the strength of the British pound sterling. On the other hand, they were up ...
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Highmark Completes Viva's Acquisition
Highmark has completed its acquisition of Viva International Group for an undisclosed amount. Viva International distributes designer eyewear collections including Guess?, Tommy Hilfiger, Gant, Candie's, Harley-Davidson and Catherine Deneuve, and will begin distributing De Rigo's Furla, Fila, Etro, Givenchy, Escada and Ermenegildo Zegna eyewear in North America this year. ...
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The Marcolin And Della Valle Families Will Not Make A New Tender Offer
The tender offer launched for Marcolin SpA at €1.4 a share by the Marcolin and Della Valle families collected only 7,830,550 shares, or 37.2 percent of those available for purchase until the bid's expiry date of Feb. 11, short of the 46 percent quota that is not in their hands. ...
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Alain Afflelou Makes Progress
Apax Partners, the investment fund which backed Alain Afflelou's costly acquisition of Carrefour's optical retail operations in France and Spain, has sold a 5.97 percent stake in France's largest franchisor on the open market. Meanwhile, Afflelou reports a 3.0 percent decline to €10.6 million in net profit after goodwill amortization ...
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Rodenstock Raises Its Market Share And Launches New Products
Rodenstock claims that its market shares increased in both lenses and frames in the depressed German market last year and says its sales rose substantially in all the major foreign markets, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Far East. Total revenues in the core sector of ?spectacles? reached €386 million ...
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Sola Turns Around, Plans A New Launch
Reporting on its quarterly financial performance ahead of a Feb. 28 shareholders' meeting that will decide on its proposed merger with the eyewear division of Carl Zeiss, SOLA International says its sales grew by 2.4 percent to $163.1 million for its 3rd fiscal quarter ended last Dec. 31, 2004, as ...
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Hoya Posts A 20.1% Operating Margin In Vision Care
The high operating margin (Ebit) reached by Hoya's vision care division in the 3rd quarter ended last Dec. 31 compares with a margin of 18.1 percent in the same period a year ago. It came in spite of a 3.5 percent decline in the segment's revenues to 23.8 billion yen ...
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Bausch & Lomb Improves Results
Fourth-quarter sales at Bausch & Lomb were $606.6 million, representing increases over the year-ago period of 10 percent in dollars and 7 percent in local currencies. Gains were reported in every product and geographic market category except for an anticipated decline in sales from refractive surgery products in the Americas. ...
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Good Prelude For Vision Expo East
The International Vision Expo fair scheduled for March 10-13 in New York, which will group more than 550 exhibitors from the USA and abroad, is going to take place against the backdrop of an apparent increase in US consumption of sunglasses and other eyewear products, at least in terms of ...
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Superlight Glasses From Venice
A young Italian firm by the name of ArteVedo, established in 2000 by a Venetian optician, Roberto Carlon, is doing extremely well with its concept of superlight eyewear called Micromega, patented for Europe, China and the USA. The glasses are almost entirely handcrafted, with beta titanium frames and no soldering ...
