Latest Headlines – Page 219
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Hal Raises Its Stake In Cole National
HAL Holding is the controlling shareholder of Pearle Europe, parent company of Apollo Optik, Avanzi, MultiOpticas and other optical retail chains in Europe. HAL International, a unit of the Dutch-based conglomerate, has increased again to over 20 percent its shareholding in Cole National Corp., which owns several optical retail chains ...
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Buchmann Takes Conditional Control Of Pro-laser
The establishment of the world's largest provider of technology solutions for the optical retail market is not yet quite a reality. Buchmann Optical Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire just over 51 percent of the loss-making Pro-Laser Group, staving off a possible bankruptcy of the young Israeli-based company, but ...
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Rodenstock Suffers A Temporary Drop In Net Earnings
Rodenstock reports for last year a net profit of only 5 million DM (e2.5m-$2m), down sharply from 19 million DM earned in 1999. The operating income remained practically stable at 51 million DM (e26m-$22m), as compared to 52 million DM, but higher amortization charges and a variety of extraordinary expenditures ...
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Zva Will Manage The New European Diploma For Optometry
The European Council of Optometry and Optics (ECOO) decided last month to award the contract to manage the future European Diploma of Optometry to ZVA, the strong and efficient German opticians' federation, which had made the cheapest of 5-6 different national offers. The ZVA had previously agreed to lend £20,000 ...
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Three Italian Glossy Magazines Have Given Away Dangerous Sunglasses
Three major Italian women's magazines - Gente, Novella 2000 and Grazia - came out in the newsstands during the second half of June offering as a gadget a pair of sunglasses that don't respect the European safety standards. Anfao, the Italian eyewear industry federation, which has launched a campaign against ...
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Pro-laser And Briot Are Set To Merge
Buchmann Holding of Belgium, which recently sold its lens manufacturing operations to Hoya, has signed a letter of intent to merge its French-based Briot International subsidiary with the 9-year-old Israeli-based Pro-Laser Group, which took over Weco and Rodenstock Instrumente from Rodenstock in 1999. The combination would reducAe R&D costs ...
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Pearle Moves Into Portugal
Pearle Europe continues its shopping spree with the acquisition of a 100 percent stake in MultiOpticas, the leading optical retail chain in Portugal with 30 company-owned stores and 106 franchised outlets. Pearle says MultiOpticas plans to open more stores and to raise the number of its franchises in the country. ...
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Fielmann Continues To Improve Margins
Europe's largest integrated chain of optical stores is forecasting an increase of between 17 and 20 percent in its net earnings this year, accompanied by an increase of only 8-10 percent in its turnover. Among other factors, Fielmann's gross margin should start to go up after the completion in June ...
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Where Is Grandvision Going Now Without Its Photo Shops?
Executives of Fielmann had no comment when asked whether their company was perhaps negotiating to acquire GrandVision now that the French-based optical retail chain has sold all its 472 photo shops, as we had anticipated in the last issue of EyeWear Intelligence. Another possible candidate may be LVMH, the giant ...
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Vittorio Tabacchi Takes Safilo Private
By the end of July, Safilo should become the sole property of Vittorio Tabacchi and his family, including his two children Samantha and Massimiliano, and the world's second-largest eyewear firm will not longer be trading publicly. Consob, the Italian stock exchange watchdog authority, in fact forced the trio to launch ...
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Marchon Boosts Its Own Management
The large privately held American eyewear group, which is contemplating a possible public offering in the medium-long term, has appointed three new top-notch executives to help manage its fast-growing operations and to optimize back-office functions. They all report to Al Berg, one of the financial partners in Marchon, who assumed ...
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De Rigo Prepares Secondary Offering And Makes New Appointments
De Rigo has appointed Lazard and IntesaBCI as global coordinators for a secondary offering on the Milan stock exchange that is tentatively scheduled for November. It's not sure how many new shares will be issued, but probably the Milan IPO won't be much more generous than the one launched by ...
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Luxottica Sells Less Through Lens-crafters, And De Rigo Isn't Pushing It
Officials of Luxottica indicate that they have decided to lower from 70 to about 50 percent the volume of Lenscrafters' eyewear frames represented by its own products, in order to avoid antagonizing other US retailers. On the other hand, the Italian group will conduct certain tests to see if it ...
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Salmoiraghi Launches A Buying Group
Italy's major chain of optical stores, Salmoiraghi & Vigano, is fostering the establishment of a separate buying group of independent opticians to whom it will extend some of its own very favorable purchasing conditions. The project is conducted by Massimo Corti, who is in charge of franchising and new ...
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Pambianco Analyzes The Eyewear Sector
Suppliers of eyewear frames are doing well on the stock exchange. Based on a study conducted by Carlo Pambianco's management consultancy in Milan, at 16 trillion lire (e8.2bn-$7bn) the joint stockmarket capitalization of Italy's 4 major publicly quoted eyewear firms in March was equal to 2.3 times their combined annual ...
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Italian Imports Shoot Up By 44.7%
The final statistical data for the Italian eyewear sector show a serious 44.7 percent boom in imports to 803 billion lire (e415m-$356m), with sunglasses up to 304 billion lire (e155m-$133m) and prescription glasses up to 290 billion lire (e148m-$127m). These imports continued to soar in the first quarter of 2001, ...
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Bourgeois Appoints A New Ceo
Matthieu Clodong is the new managing director of Bourgeois. A 30-year-old management consultant who has been working on the reorganization of the French firm as an employee of Deloitte & Touche, Clodong will take over the post left vacant by the abrupt departure of Philippe Castilla at the end of ...
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Vuarnet Rebounds In The Usa, Re-enters The Australian Market
Vuarnet, the French specialist in mineral sunglasses, raised its US sales by 19.5 percent to $5 million last year, and it's projecting to take them to $7 million this year thanks to new contracts with major department stores, such as Nordstrom and Macy's, and the resumption of advertising in the ...
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Visibilia Adds New Managers, New Brand
The Italian eyewear manufacturer, based in Venice, launched at this month's Mido fair a new licensed high-end brand of eyewear, Gerani. It represents the 7th brand in Visibilia's portfolio, which already includes major fashion names such as Laura Biagiotti, Stefanel and Trussardi. Visibilia has budgeted a 12 percent increase ...
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Allison Gets Anna Sui License For 10 Years
Allison, the eyewear branch of Tonino Perna's IT Holding, signed a licensing agreement with the Chinese-American designer on April 30. The new license, which will involve an investment similar to that sustained for its own Romeo Gigli and Exté license, the new agreement with Anna Sui will run for a ...
