Latest Headlines – Page 218
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Boots' Optical Sales Drop 1.7% In Quarter
Sales were down 1.7 percent in absolute terms and on a same-store basis at the Boots Opticians chain in the UK during the 1st quarter ended June 30. Hower, total retail sales were up 3.9 percent for the Boots The Chemists group, thanks in particular to strong performance in its ...
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Lissac Turns Around, And The French Chain Won't Change Hands For Now
Lissac Opticien, the French chain of wholly-owned and franchised stores, has announced its first earnings in many years. The company reports a net profit of 67,540 euros for the year 2000 on 3 percent higher revenues of e51,84 million. Of these, e27.75 million came from Lissac's 31 wholly-owned stores and ...
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French Buying Group Joins Ofti
Alliance Optique & Independance, a buying group with about 850 affiliated retail members in France, has joined the young new European Optical Federation of Trade and Industry (OFTI), which now represents more than 3,000 optical retailers in 10 countries. The other members are Optiker Gilde of Germany, Synopik of ...
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Zeiss Reduces Administrative Costs In Its Opthalmic Lens Business
Carl Zeiss plans to eliminate about 180 employees from its consumer spectacle optics division, the only one within the German group that is not yet delivering positive results. The division broke even in the financial year ended last Sept. 30, whereas all the others contributed some earnings after various restructuring ...
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Safilo Is Running Its Carrera And Smith Brands Separately
Observers are asking themselves what will happen after the privatization of Safilo, a process that should be probably completed in December after the redemption of the remaining 6 percent of the shares that have not yet been tendered to Programma 2002, the company set up by Vittorio Tabacchi and his ...
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Oakley Apppoints New European Manager, Invests In Italy
Oakley Europe plans to open a dedicated sales office for the Italian market in Milan this coming fall, raising to 9 the number of the company's sales offices around the world. The office will be run by Francesco Forte, who is moving back to Italy after steering Italian sales for ...
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Philippe Degrenne Heads Up Cebe
Philippe Degrenne, a 48-year-old executive of Cébé International who has been with the company for 5 years, is promoted as CEO, replacing Armel Cahierre who is moving to the USA for family reasons (he is married with an American). Degrenne has been manager of operations since 1996, and finance manager ...
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Growing Fedon Makes An Investment On A Chinese Trading Company
The world's leading manufacturer of eyewear cases, Fedon, posted very good half-year results through June 30, claiming a 22 percent world market share and reporting total production of 63 million units in the period, accessories included. Listed on the over-the-counter of the Paris Bourse, the Italian firm recorded a sales ...
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Essilor Had Some Positive Results In Half
Essilor improved its operating margin to 14.6 percent of sales in the 1st half ended June 30 from 14 percent in the year ago period. Its operating income grew in fact by 11 percent to 152.3 million euros, without including e12.3 million for the cost of developing VisionWeb and other ...
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Hoya Improves Vision Care Results
The Hoya group is budgeting increases of only about 2 percent in sales and earnings for the first half ending Sept. 30, due to the impact of a decelerating US economy on its own electro-optics operations, but the vision care division should generate much better results thanks to the introduction ...
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Sola Continues To Make Progress Financially
Sola International's global sales dropped by 4.2 percent to $136 million in the 1st quarter ended June 30, due in part to the strength of the dollar and continued efforts to reduce sales of low-margin products in the USA, Brazil and Asia. In terms of local currencies and based on ...
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Jobson Folds Sightstreet Into Vision Web
The US-based publisher of Vision Monday, 20/20 and other trade magazines had launched its own open Sightstreet.com website at the beginning of last year as a contents-rich one-stop online ordering operation. Jobson Publishing has now decided to merge Sightstreet into the new VisionWeb portal pioneered by Essilor International, in return ...
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Wesley Jessen Helps Ciba Vision To Grow
CIBA Vision raised its sales by 43 percent to 881 million Swiss francs (e581m-$526m) in the 1st half ended June 30, with a 45 percent increase in local currencies, but a full 43 percentage points were due to last October's acquisition of Wesley Jessen. Sales of conventional contact lenses and ...
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Bausch & Lomb Is Ready For Strategic Changes
Bausch & Lomb's board of directors fully supports the current management and its strategy, but it continues to seek input from external experts on possible strategic alternatives. William H. Waltrip, a long-time director of the group, has agreed to take over the position of chairman of the board, leaving its ...
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Marine Explores Strategic Options
Marine Optical is evaluating various strategic options for its future together with its main creditor, Dominion Resources of Richmond, Virginia, working through Ernst & Young. It sounds like Marine is looking for a new investor. Dave duFour, Marine's new president and CEO, and other company officials refuse to indicate whether ...
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Sap System Brings Big Benefits For L'amy
L'Amy, France's largest eyewear manufacturer, claims to be the only European company that has decided to implement SAP's integrated information system solution, besides Indo of Spain, and the benefits have already started to show up. It took the company about one year to catch up with a start-up problem that ...
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Luxottica Looks At New Acquisitions And New Facilities For Plastic Sun Lenses
Luxottica continues its shopping spree. Oakley may be the next item on the list, provided the price looks right. Anyhow, one of Leonardo Del Vecchio's priorities is to acquire other optical retail chains, particularly in North America, Australia and the UK. In the USA, the group will be looking exclusively ...
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Vittorio Tabacchi Is Running Up A Huge Debt To Gain Control Of Safilo
A pool of banks has lent 1,150 billion lire (e594m-$508m) to Vittorio Tabacchi to help him and his children Massimiliano and Samantha to complete the acquisition of all the Safilo shares they didn't own before. They are currently involved in a public friendly tender at 12.50 euros a share for ...
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Grandvision Says It's Not For Sale, Targets Italy And Spain
The management of the international French-based optical retail group says it will ?fiercely? oppose any unfriendly bid for the company, even if the price offered were 35 percent higher than the current stockmarket value of about 22 euros. With 71 percent of its equity floating on the Paris stock exchange ...
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Boots Rolls Out A New Optical Format
Designed to create a new environment that will offer a special ?customer journey,? clearly differentiating Boots Opticians from price-driven competitors, the new store format will be rolled out this year on 25 locations at a total cost of £4 million (e m-$m). The new investments follow continued disappointing results for ...
