Latest Headlines – Page 204
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Recovery In Sight At Fedon After Revenues Fall By 3.8 %
The difficulties experienced on the global eyewear market have not spared Fedon, the world's leading producer of eyewear cases, which ended the year 2002 with turnover down by 3.87 percent to e56.33 million. After a drastic 18.5 percent fall in revenues posted for the first half of the year, the ...
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Gatto Astucci Moves Into Display Units For Retailers
Gatto Astucci, which claims to be the second largest producer of eyewear cases in the Western world after Fedon, has started to diversify like its main rival. It has acquired Modaplex, an Italian company based in Padua with annual sales of about e5 million that specializes in high-quality in-store display ...
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Back In Business, The Former Galileo Makes A 5% Profit Margin
This long-established Italian lens manufacturer from the Venice region went into liquidation in 1999 and was subsequently acquired by Ital-lenti, located in the Belluno region, in January of 2000 for e5.7 million. Called Oftalmica Galileo Italia, the new company set up by Leo Polzotto, owner of Ital-lenti, integrated his company's ...
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A New Type Of Rimless Frame Emerges From The Demise Of The Former Galileo
Antonio Pincin, a young Italian entrepreneur whose companyoriginally produced eyewear exclusively under contract, has succeeded in doubling its production by gaining a foothold in the Russian market through the former Galileo and by coming up with a highly innovative new product. When Ital-lenti bought out the bankrupt Galileo ...
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The Italian Industry Launches Its Own Internet Portal, Eyesway
Eyesway is a new Italian portal is promoted by EFOP, owner of the MIDO trade fair, and ANFAO, the Italian eyewear industry association. will soon be up and running. Its services will include a weather forecast that gives out the UV irradiation index for the main European capitals, in order ...
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Three Uk Associations Come Under The Same Roof
Three UK trade associations have moved from their respective premises in the London area into a nice single headquarters in Paddington, with a combined staff of 15 persons. They are the Federation of Manufacturing Opticians (FMO), the Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians (FODO) and the Association of British Dispensing ...
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Safilo Gets The Armani License
Safilo will deliver its first Giorgio Armani and Emporio Armani collections to retailers for the Spring 2003 season by May, soon after presenting its new models at MIDO in Milan. The two lines, which target older and younger consumers, respectively, have been developed so far under license by Luxottica, whose ...
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Luxottica's Next Buy May Be In The Usa
Luxottica officially denied early last week a new spate of rumors in the Italian press that it was negotiating the acquisition of De Rigo or GrandVision. A new round of rumors then began, indicating that the world's largest eyewear company was discussing a $400 million acquisition in Northern Europe, triggering ...
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Grandvision Reaches A 7.6% Ebit Margin
The French-based optical retailing group is still far from LensCrafters' 15 percent operating margin, but it made considerable progress in that direction in 2002, raising its own operating profit by 56 percent to 7.6 percent of sales throughout the group, up from 2.4 percent in 2000 and 5.2 percent in ...
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De Rigo Posts A Marginal Sales Increase For The Year
De Rigo's consolidated revenues increased by only 1.4 percent to e512.6 million in 2002, but they rose faster on a comparable basis and profits probably increased even more. Without the sale of its interest in Ranieri of Argentina last June, the group's revenues would have increased by 2.3 percent. Currency ...
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Specsavers' Comps Are Up 5.1%
Britain's largest optical retailer reports a 5.1 percent sales increase on a same-store basis in 2002 for its 670 joint venture partners, which ran a total of 491 stores by the end of last year. The number of affiliated stores grew by 50, half of which were secured by a ...
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Salmoiraghi Strengthens Its Presence In A Difficult Italian Market
No precise data are available about the Italian market, but sources indicate that it declined sharply last year, particularly in the 2nd half. As previously reported, the Italian market for sunglasses underwent a real purge after the excesses of 2001, which had led many suppliers to post major price increases ...
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Visual Wins In Court Again Afflelou
Overturning a lower court's decision, a French court of appeals has allowed the Visual voluntary group to continue to run an original TV commercial that questions the quality of the lenses offered by competitors as part of their frequent ?two for one? promotions. Implying that the competitors' glasses may just ...
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Rodenstock Returns Into The Black
Rodenstock became profitable again last year, raising its sales of lenses and frames by about 3 percent, according to preliminary figures, with most of the growth achieved in export markets. Further improvements in sales and profits are expected in 2003. Lenses and frames represent about 80 and 20 percent of ...
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Moulin Raises Its Stake In Metzler
Moulin International's interim financial report for the 6 months ended last Sept. 30 says the Hong Kong-based group increased its share in Metzler International during the period. As of March 31 one year ago, it stood at 54.6 percent. Indicating that Moulin's equity position in Metzler is not yet finally ...
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Oakley Secures Growth Through New Products, Categories And Stores
One of the latest initiatives is a planned co-branded launch of progressive lenses with Essilor's Varilux line in this USA this coming Spring. Oakley is also planning to roll out a variety of new eyewear styles, including the largest frame it has ever designed and more specific sunglass models for ...
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Hoya Apologizes For Sub-standard Shipments
Among other bad news, Hoya Corp. apologized in its latest quarterly financial report last month for shipping a very small quantity of sub-standard products from its own line of shock-resistant plastic lenses for eyeglasses, adding that it will make more efforts to improve quality control and thus prevent such incidents ...
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Sola Grows Slowly In Europe
SOLA International's European sales grew by only 2.8 percent in local currencies in the 3rd quarter ended Dec. 31. Sales of progressive lenses rose by 3 percent. Strong results from its prescription laboratories in France, Italy and Spain were partially offset by weaker results from its wholesale business in Germany ...
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Vision-ease Improves Results In Quarter
The optical products group of BMC Industries reported break-even operating earnings for the 4th quarter of 2002 on 24 percent lower revenues of $21.7 million, as compared to a negative operating margin of 17 percent in the same period one year earlier. The gross margin improved to 8.7 percent from ...
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Bausch & Lomb Loses One More Round With Ciba Vision, But Improves Results
Confirming the sentence of a lower court, a US federal court of appeals has ruled that Bausch & Lomb cannot manufacture or sell its PureVision contact lenses in the country until at least 2005 because they infringe on patents held by CIBA Vision for its own Night & Day continues ...
