Latest Headlines – Page 200
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Allison Gets The John Richmond License
The Italian company has been granted the production and distribution license for a line of sunglasses and prescription eyewear by John Richmond, the English apparel designer. The first collections will be showcased at the SILMO show in Paris in October, featuring about 30 models for men and women in 100 ...
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Maui Jim Sets Up Offices In Various European Countries
This big American brand of polarized sunglasses has set up its own fully owned sales operations in Germany, Italy and the UK over the last few months, hiring experienced professionals to run them. Michel Joffre, the Frenchman who has been running Maui Jim's European activities directly out of France for ...
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Julbo Enters New Markets
This small French sports eyewear company, best known for its plastic injected children's sunglasses, which represented about one-quarter of its total volume of 675,000 units in 2002, is venturing into new ground by introducing its first snow goggles as well as its first line of sunglasses with metal frames. To ...
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Rudy Project Makes Progress As A Niche Brand, Too
This little Italian sports eyewear firm got a lot of visibility at last July's highly publicized Tour de France bicycle race, where 32 percent of the participants and 6 high-level teams were wearing its glasses. While Oakley celebrated Lance Amstrong's 5th victory in the race, Rudy Project is now planning ...
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German Health Reform Will Damage The Eyewear Market, Maybe Less Fielmann
ZVA, the country's strong association of optical retailers, predicts that the German optical retail market will drop by at least 20 percent next year as a result of a planned reform of the federal managed health system, which is now in the final stages of preparation for 2004, leading to ...
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Fielmann Performed Very Well Lately, Especially Abroad
The group's ordinary pre-tax profit jumped in the 1st half of this year by 22.9 percent to $45,623,000, or 12.8 percent of consolidated sales. In Germany, Fielmann's pre-tax margin dropped slightly to 8.9 percent on 9.8 percent higher sales of €288.5 million. In Switzerland, it grew to €4.9 million, equal ...
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Grandvision Improves Its Profitability
The 2nd quarter was better than the 1st one in all the divisions in terms of profit margins, and the company may yet be able to reach its target of a 9.5 percent operating profit margin (Ebit) for the full year, provided it succeeds in lifting its sluggish sales in ...
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Luxottica Gains Control Of Opsm Group
As of yesterday, when OPSM Group announced strong operating results for the financial year ended last June 30, Luxottica's tender offer for the largest eyewear retailer in the Asia-Pacific region had already been accepted by 74.78 percent of its shareholders, representing 87.91 percent of its equity. The bid is scheduled ...
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Randazzo Leases Ottica Romani Stores
Ottica Romani, the Rome-based Italian optical retail chain that went bankrupt recently (see previous issue), will be managed by the Sicilian-based chain of Angelo Randazzo until it finds a buyer. Randazzo plans to reopen by Sept. 10 Ottica Romani's 32 stores, of which 24 operate in Rome after winning last ...
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The Oxo Group Proposes To Get Rid Of Obsolete Eyewear
In various countries of the world, including Italy, owners of old automobiles that represent an environmental hazard have been awarded good discounts on a new model provided they scrap the old one. The logic is evident. But an Argentine optician who is now based in Italy has now come up ...
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Recovering Lissac Can Use A Partner
The well-known French optical chain could well be interested in a partnership with a large foreign group, such as Pearle Europe for example, to sustain its expansion and to further improve its margins and its private label business now that its financial problems are over. A couple of years ago, ...
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Pentax Vision Merges Into Seiko Optical
The merger, which will become effective next Jan. 1, is expected to generate higher economies of scale and to provide a useful exchange of information between the respective R&D teams for the development of future generations of high-index ophthalmic lenses. While Pentax has been strong in optical innovations, Seiko has ...
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Sola Scores Better Than Expected
Sales increased by 5.3 percent on a currency-neutral basis in the 1st quarter ended June 30, as compared to the same period a year ago, with gains of 11.1 percent in North America and 4.4 percent in Europe partly offset by a 5.8 percent drop in the rest of the ...
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And Ocular Sciences, Too
During the 2nd quarter, the company's revenues increased by 16 percent in dollars to $76.1 million, with a 9 percent increase in local currencies. While US sales rose by 4 percent, sales in the rest of the world increased by 35 percent in dollars, with gains of nearly 30 percent ...
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So Does Bausch & Lomb
Bausch & Lomb's net earnings rose by 33 percent to $28.3 million in the 2nd quarter ended June 28 as its total sales grew by 12 percent to $512.5 million, with a 4 percent increase in local currencies, and the management thinks the growth could have reached 5-6 percent without ...
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Visionix Acquires Luneau
Luneau is the leading supplier of ophthalmic diagnostic products in France, where it claims a 32 percent market share, and it disposes of a US sales subsidiary. The young Israeli firm has paid €3.7 million in cash for the company, which has 104 employees and annual sales of over €12 ...
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The Mila Schön License Goes To Vidivici
Vidivici, founded in Bologna by the Danzi family in 1996, has been granted the production and distribution license for Mila Schön women's eyewear for the worldwide market, Japan excluded. The new collections will be on sale as from 2004. The sunglass lines will be showcased at SILMO in Paris in ...
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Oliver Peoples Becomes More Pro
As Alain Mikli of Paris did a few weeks ago with Dominique Pohu (see EWI of May 27), Larry Leight, the extravagant Los Angeles founder and creative director of Oliver Peoples, hired as its president an experienced manager, William Barton, at the beginning of 2002 to put some order into ...
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French Investment Group Wants To Take Grandvision Private
While GrandVision's management brings in other arguments for supporting the bid announced by PAI one week ago, the move can be seen as an effort by some of its founding shareholders to fend off a possible hostile takeover by HAL Trust, the Dutch investment company that owns 68 percent of ...
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Pearle Europe Will Buy Synoptik
HAL Investments doesn't need to take over GrandVision to consolidate the European market leadership Pearle Europe. Its #1 position in the European market is being confirmed through an agreement to acquire a controlling 50.16 percent stake in Synoptik, with a consent on its strategy by the Lego Foundation, which will ...
