Latest Headlines – Page 226
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General Optica And The Prada Alliance Begin To Show Up In De Rigo's Results
De Rigo has not reported its earnings for the first half of this year, but its sales figures for the period reflect for the first time its investments on retailing on the Iberian peninsula and the first fruits of its alliance with a powerful fashion partner, Prada. They show a ...
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Bushnell Acquires Serengeti
Worldwide Sports & Recreation, a US company known also as Bushnell Sports Optics, plans to complete at midnight today the takeover of Serengeti Eyewear, the US premium-quality sunglass company acquired by Stephen «Rusty» Nevitt from Corning in February 1997 for $27.5 million. Nevitt, who has been running Serengeti since the ...
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Oakley Enjoys A Boom
Oakley's quarterly sales reached the magic level of $100 million - $100,013,000 to be precise - for the first time in its history in the 3-month period ended June 30. That was 39 percent more than in the comparable period a year ago, with sales increases of 38 percent in ...
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Zeiss Turns Around And Gets A New Ceo
Dieter Kurz, 52, will succeed next Jan. 1 Peter Grassmann as CEO of Carl Zeiss, presiding over an enlarged management board. A physicist, Kurz had joined Zeiss in 1979 as a project manager. He became a member of the management board at the beginning of last year. As reported, ...
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Bausch & Lomb Buys French Chauvin Labs
Based in Montpellier, Groupe Chauvin is the largest French supplier of opthalmic products, with its own operations also in Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and the UK. It took over recently Smith & Nephew's opthalmic division in the UK, Ankerpharm in Germany and Opsia, a French supplier of intra-ocular implants. These acquisitions ...
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The Deadline For Ciba's Bid For Wesley Jessen Is Once Again Postponed To Aug. 23
Ciba Vision had already postponed to one week ago the expiration date for its $785 million tender offer for Wesley Jessen, which it had first announced last May 30, leading Bausch & Lomb to withdraw its own cheaper bid. Ciba Vision has postponed the deadline again to Aug. 23, citing ...
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Allergan Cooperates With Johnson & Johnson In New Global Alliance
Vistakon, which claims to be the world's largest supplier of contact lenses, is teaming up with Allergan, the second-largest international supplier of contact lens solutions and other eye care products, to expand the contact lens market by optimizing the comfort factor. The two companies will carry out coordinated research, education ...
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Essilor Reports A 22.6 % Increase In Net Income For The First Half Of 2000
Sales increased by 18.7 percent in the first half ended June 30 to 975.3 million euros, with gains in all the major markets, especially in Europe. In Germany, Essilor International recorded a double-digit increase following a management reorganization. New products such as polycarbonate lenses and the new Panamic line of ...
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Sola Continues To Grow Fast In Europe
Increased sales and marketing efforts, combined with strong sales of polycarbonate lenses, AO Compact and other new products, helped to generate sales increases of 20.8 percent in Europe and 25.8 percent in other regions outside North America in the company's first quarter, ended June 30. Instead, North American sales dropped ...
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Hoya Now Sells Fewer Lenses In Japan Than Abroad
Last September's acquisition of Buchmann in Belgium and last April's takeover of ORI in the USA, which were not consolidated before, helped to boost by 40.1 percent to 10,783 million yen (e108m-$99m) the foreign turnover of Hoya's vision care division in the first quarter ended June 30, representing for the ...
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Alain Afflelou Plans To Annex Lissac
Alain Afflelou plans to acquire one of its competitors, Les Frères Lissac, forming a nationwide chain of about 600 outlets, mostly franchised. The details of the merger should be announced later this month, but it seems that Afflelou will get a controlling stake in Lissac through an equity increase, partly ...
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Contemplating International Alliances, La Guilde Forms A New Holding Company
With 14 percent of the French market through its three banners ? Krys, Vision Plus and Vision Originale ? La Guilde des Lunetiers sees little room for expansion at the national level, except through the enlargement of its 860 affiliated optical stores, which have a combined surface of about 50,000 ...
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Optic 2000 Gets A New Chairman And Certification Of Its Schooling Efforts
The members of the French buying group, which may soon have a German partner, have elected Philippe Viot, an Optic 2000 optician in Toulon, as its chairman. He replaces Jim Hatchiguian, an optician in Beauvais who happens to be the brother Joseph Hatchiguian, CEO of Pouilloux, the famous eyewear licensee ...
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Grandvision Grows Rapidly And Plans To Open New Flagship Stores
The integrated French optical and photo retailing group will soon generate more revenues outside France than inside. In the 1st half ended June 30, GrandVision's sales in France grew by 8.5 percent to 239 million euros, with increases of 9 percent for its optical stores and 7.5 percent for its ...
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Koefoed Runs Nordic Optical Partners
Jesper Koefoed has been promoted as managing director of Optik Danmark and of Nordic Optical Partners, the Scandinavian federation of national buying cooperatives to which the 1-year-old Danish grouping belongs. As previously planned, he takes over these responsibilities from Jan Herrig, whom he had assisted as buying director for both ...
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Boots Invests On Systems And Promotion
Boots Opticians is introducing Boots Prismig, a lighter and clearer spectacle lens that it will be able to produce in-store more rapidly than by traditional methods, offering it in single vision, bifocal and multifocal designs. The British optical chain is installing the related lens crafting equipment at 150 stores by ...
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Sunglass Hut Boosts European Marketing
Sunglass Hut Europe, which is now profitable, has appointed two marketing executives at its headquarters in the UK. Vanessa Griffiths, who has a direct marketing and advertising background, has joined as head of external marketing, to generate as much publicity as possible for its growing store network and for its ...
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Ciba Vision Agrees To Acquire Wesley Jessen, Upstaging Bausch & Lomb
If completed, the takeover of Wesley Jessen VisionCare will place CIBA Vision Corp. in the number two spot in the global contact lens market, with combined 1999 sales of $1.4 billion and a staff of 8,900 persons in this sector. Wesley Jessen's board of directors has unanimously approved CIBA Vision's ...
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Rodenstock Gets The Reebok License
The heavily design-oriented German firm, which had snatched away a few weeks ago the Porsche eyewear license previously held by Ray-Ban, announced last week a global license for sun, sports and corrective eyewear under the Reebok trademark. Rodenstock will replace after Dec. 31 Lantis Eyewear of the USA, which had ...
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Oakley Works Direct In Austria, Germany
Oakley has taken over the distribution in Austria from Wulf Sport, which represented the brand there since 1996. Wulf continues to distribute Oakley products in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and other Eastern European countries. Oakley has also opened its own sales office in Germany, a market which was being handled ...
