Latest Headlines – Page 222
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Service Can Be More Important Than Price In The European Market
The Eyewear Workshop held in Venice on Feb. 8-9 was judged a success by the participants, who represented 20 small and medium-sized Italian eyewear producers and 28 European optical retail chains and buying groups. It's now set to become a regular event, following a trend among the larger retailers to ...
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Luxottica Readies Bid For Sunglass Hut
The world's largest eyewear manufacturer plans to file by March 9 a formal all-cash tender offer for at all the shares of Sunglass Hut International, the world's largest chain of sunglass stores, provided it obtains a majority stake. At $11.50 a share, as compared to $8.30 prior to its announcement ...
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Will Grandvision Change Owners, Too?
GrandVision's management plans to concentrate on boosting the turnover of each individual store rather than on adding new outlets, targeting an increase in the group's operating margin from 6.7 to 9 percent of sales in 2001 and to 10 percent in 2002. The rate of expansion will slow down, with ...
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De Rigo Forms Strategic Pact With Lvmh
De Rigo has given to LVMH a major incentive to assign more licenses from its large portfolio of famous fashion brands, possibly including the coveted Christian Dior license held by Safilo. The De Rigo family, which controls about 75 percent of the publicly quoted eyewear company by the same name, ...
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Vittorio Tabacchi Obtains Indirect Control Of Safilo
The reshuffling of equity stakes in Safilo, which began last year amid huge controversy and conjecture, is not yet over. Vittorio Tabacchi, chairman of Safilo, has now succeeded in getting his brother Dino to sell a a good chunk of his shareholding in the family holding company, Fimit, which has ...
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Oakley Is Targeting $2 Billion In Sales
Commenting on the company's performance prior to the announcement of Sunglass Hut International's acquisition by Luxottica (see article), Oakley's management anticipated a 35 percent increase in the company's net earnings this year, thanks in part to a temporary reduction in the tax rate from 35 to 30 percent. Total sales ...
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Berthet-bondet Will Sells Nikon Frames
Berthet-Bondet, the French manufacturer of eyeglass frames, has signed an exclusive agreement with Nikon to distribute its optical frames in 5 major European countries ? France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Berthet-Bondet controls the distribution of its own products in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, where it plans to ...
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Marcolin Buys American Distributor
The Italian eyewear firm has bought for $13 million Creative Optics, one of largest eyewear distributors in the USA, which is handling for the moment only private label collections and American brands like Essence or Unionbay. The US firm, which is budgeting an operating profit of 6.5 billion lire (e3.4m-$3.1m) ...
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Allison Opens A Subsidiary In The Usa
Allison has opened its own sales subsidiary in the USA after purchasing a majority shareholding in Euro-Frames, which had been distributing its own products as a sort of market test since last July. Euro-Frames owner and CEO, Adour Douzjian, has a 20 percent minority stake in the new firm, calledAllison ...
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Fedon Claims 22% World Market Share In Eyewear Cases
The Italian producer of eyewear cases claims to be the world leader in eyewear cases, with a 22 percent global market share. In addition to 40 million eyewear cases, it sold last year also 23 million accessories. All its products are manufactured in 11 state-of-the-art factories in Italy, Germany and ...
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Sola Launches Contour Optics, While Looking For New Financing
Executives of Sola International are reasonably confident of obtaining by May 7 new financing, through bank loans or bonds, to get over what appears to be a temporary cash squeeze, largely caused by extraordinary charges linked to the wide-ranging reorganization of its manufacturing operations. The management is confident that the ...
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Hoya Integrates Its Recent Foreign Acquisitions
In Europe, Hoya's French subsidiary and Buchmann's ophthalmic lens division, which had been acquired by the Japanese group in September of 1999, will merge next Apr. 1 into a single operation, called Hoya Lens France. There will be no major layoffs at any of the group's two French manufacturing sites, ...
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Ciba Vision's Margins Declined In 2000
Novartis has again indicated that it may sell off its eye care division to help finance the acquisition of an American drugs company, although there are no immediate plans. Daniel Vasella, chairman of the Swiss-based group, has made it clear in recent statements that it considers its pharmaceutical business as ...
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Johnson & Johnson Continues To Sport Nice Margins
Johnson & Johnson, the highly diversified health care group, indicates that Vistakon's disposable contact lens products were among the primary contributors to 3.7 percent sales increase to $10.3 billion last year for its professional segment, along with a variety of medical devices and diagnostic equipment. In local currencies, the division ...
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Bausch & Lomb Restructures Chauvin
Bausch & Lomb is reducing from 621 to 580 the number of its employees in France following the integration of Chauvin, the French-based ophthalmic medicine laboratory acquired last summer, which still employed 475 persons in France and 307 in the rest of Europe as of last Dec. 31. B&L is ...
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Germany Continues With Two Fairs
Randolf Rodenstock, who is chairman of Optica's board of trustees, told a press conference last month that there should be only one optical fair in Germany, but the competition between Cologne and Munich is a stimulus for both to improve their presentation. Like most other firms in the ...
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Grandvision Will Group Its Purchases With The Optic 2000 Buying Group
GrandVision and Optic 2000 plan to pool together their purchasing power, starting this year, in order to obtain better conditions from their external suppliers, particularly in the eyewear frame sector. The landmark deal is the first instance, to our knowledge of a large integrated chain of optical stores cooperating on ...
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Fielmann's Biggest Store Will Be In Amsterdam
Fielmann has found a prime location on Kalvar Straat for its planned Amsterdam superstore. Scheduled to open around September, it will be the company's largest store in Europe with a total surface of 1,200 square meters, larger than those that in Zurich and Vienna. The German optical retailing group ...
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Hauslein Is Sunglass Hut's Ceo Again
James N. Hauslein, an executive who has been involved with the build-up of the Sunglass Hut International chain since June of 1987, has become its chief executive officer again, directly responsible also for its operations outside the USA. He will work closely with Greg N. Milne, who joined the company ...
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Disappointed Luxottica (+64.7% In Net) Decides Against New Public Offering
Only 25 percent of Luxottica's total equity is floating on the stockmarket in New York and Milan, but there will be no secondary offering of Luxottica shares on the Milan Bourse, at least for a while. Commenting on the group's excellent results for the year 2000, its chairman, Leonardo Del ...
