Latest Headlines – Page 209
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Indo Invests In The Usa And Takes Over Lacoste For Spain
The Spanish group has set up a new national sales subsidiary in West Covina, California, in which it has a 60 percent controlling interest. The balance of the shares are held by two local executives, Daniel Klamut and Tom Posin, who have experience in the sector as former executives of ...
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Essilor Reaches A Record 15.8% Margin
Higher than expected sales increases, higher income from Transitions and growing profitability in the USA all contributed to lift Essilor International's operating income by 14.2 percent to e176.9 million in the 1st half of 2002, representing a record margin of 15.8 percent which compares with 14.8 percent in the year-ago ...
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Hoya Attains A 16.8% Margin
The operating margin of Hoya's vision care segment increased to 16.8 percent in the 1st quarter ended June 30, up from 15.4 percent a higher ago, while its turnover increased by only 2.3 percent to 23,573 million yen (e201m-$200m). Its health care segment, which includes contact lenses and hearing aids, ...
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Sola Acquires Two More U.S. Labs
Following Essilor's and Hoya's US expansion policy and its own track record in Europe, Sola International has acquired two more prescription labs in the USA with annual revenues of $13.5 million. They are B&W Optical Co. in Baltimore and Southeastern Optical in Roanoke, Virginia. The management stresses once again ...
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Vision-ease Suffers A Sales Decline
Douglas C. Hepper, chairman and CEO of its parent company, BMC Industries, says he is ?beginning to see the end of the tunnel.? In the 2nd quarter ended June 30, the group's net loss declined to $2,302,000 from $7,451,000 in the year-ago period, despite a 15 percent decline in consolidated ...
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Oakley Paints A Less Rosy Future
Revising its sales and profit projections for the balance of this year because of a weak retail environment, Oakley says softer than expected sunglass sales will lead to sales increases of only 10-12 percent in the 3rd quarter and 20-22 percent in the 4th quarter, versus the corresponding 2001 periods. ...
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Gerber Coburn Partners With Visionix
Gerber Coburn has formed a strategic alliance with Visionix, the Israeli firm developer of innovative lens inspection and measurement instruments for opticians. Under a new agreement that formalizes previous joint efforts to develop sophisticated lens verification systems for wholesale laboratories, Gerber Coburn will integrate and distribute devices, developed by Visionix, ...
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Sunglass Hut And The Dollar Lead To A Quarterly Sales Drop For Luxottica
As Leonardo Del Vecchio puts it, the outlook for the global economic environment continues to be uncertain and the economy has a difficult time turning around, affecting consumer confidence. On the other hand, Luxottica's chairman and CEO still expects to reach a net margin close to 12 percent for the ...
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Oakley Improves Relations With Sunglass Hut, Leading To Shortages
Jim Jannard, the unconventional CEO and majority shareholder of Oakley, had a couple of good surprises lately. The company's main icon, Lance Amstrong, won the Tour de France cycling tournament for the 4th time in a row, and Jannard was there to cheer him. More importantly, Oakley's relations with Sunglass ...
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De Rigo Has Mixed Results
The group's retail sales continued to grow sharply in Spain, but not in the UK, where its wholly owned Dollond & Aitchison chain suffered from a difficult retail environment for optical frames and from certain disruptions and delays, due to change in the supply chain that followed the sale of ...
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Grandvision Grew By 6% In Half, But The Weather Affected It In Italy
The European GrandVision optical group raised its sales by 6 percent to e303 million in the 1st half ended June 30, with 4 percent growth overall on a same-store basis, indicating market share gains in various countries. In Italy, however, its GrandOptical stores suffered a slight decline on ...
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Fielmann Benefits From Its Dutch War With Specsavers
Fielmann has begun to sign up some more leases for its own stores in the Netherlands following a wave of free publicity that has reportedly raised the brand's level of recognition in the country from 4 to 80 percent in the last few weeks. Scores of press articles have in ...
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Essilor Makes New Investments In Korea And Poland
Using a strategy that is somewhat similar to the one that it has been pursueing with Nikon in Japan, where the group has become the second-largest player, Essilor International is forming a 50-50 joint venture with a South Korean company, Samyung Trading Co., to help sell better its products in ...
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Bausch & Lomb Kicks Off A New Restructuring Program, While Its Results Improve
Bausch & Lomb has announced yet another major restructuring program, involving mainly a reduced product range, a rationalization of the production apparatus and a consolidation of US warehousing and distribution operations. Designed to increase operating earnings by about $90 million a year by 2005, the new series of measures will ...
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Ciba Vision Wins A Battle Against B&L And Raises Its European Market Shares
Ciba Vision has won in a US court a major patent infringement suit against Bausch & Lomb, but the issue is not quite settled yet. The court ordered B&L to stop manufacturing and selling its PureVision contact lens in the USA until a patent issued to Wesley Jessen expires in ...
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Alain Afflelou Improves Results, Looks At Germany For Growth
Following its successful stock market introduction, which was subscribed by more than 100 institutional investors, Europe's largest retail franchisor in the optical sector has resumed negotiations for the acquisition of an unnamed German retail chain that it would use to build up a similar network of franchised stores in that ...
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De Rigo Lets Dino Tabacchi Buy 100% Of Salmoiraghi
As of June 25, Dino Tabacchi, who is leaving as vice president of Safilo, owns 100 percent of the largest italian optical chain, Salmoiraghi & Vigano, as De Rigo waived its right of first refusal on the acquisition on June 4. De Rigo, which owns the General Optica chain in ...
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Boots Opticians Doubles Margins
Boots Opticians' operating income more than doubled in the year ended March 31, increasing by 113.6 percent to £9.4 million (e14.5m-$14.3m). The result can be attributed to considerable streamlining and the reorganization of various aspects of the chain conducted by Norman Usher, who was appointed as its managing director about ...
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Fielmann Continues To Gain Market Share In Tough German Market
Fielmann has reported a 3 percent increase in consolidated sales to e158.3 million for the 1st quarter ended March 31. In Germany, where it claims that the optical market declined by 2-3 percent in the period, its sales continued to grow at a rate of 2 percent on a comparable ...
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The German Market May Grow By 2%
This is the tentative forecast recently made for this year by Germany's well-organized Central Association of Opticians (ZVA), based on the latest indications from the market. According to ZVA, German opticians' sales grew by only 0.6 percent in 2001 to e4,039 million, with flat revenues in all the major product ...
