Latest Headlines – Page 71
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Italia Independent goes for another capital increase
The Italia Independent Group has launched yet another capital increase to refinance itself. It is reserved to its president and main shareholder, Lapo Elkann, and a new investor, Talent EuVECA, a fund owned by AVM and the Centurion Global Fund. Elkann's stake will be diluted, but he will keep the ...
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Thema to expand with new Virtual Eyewear Assistant
Thema Optical, an Italian company founded in 1971, presented its proprietary Virtual Eyewear Assistant (VEA) at this year's Opti show in Munich in January. The internally designed software and hardware allows customers to browse through seven collections and choose the glasses that best suit their face.Customers can also personalize the frames ...
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L’Amy America launches a luxury division
The U.S. company is entering the luxury market in the U.S. by forming a new company, Ultimate Vision USA, after taking over an American distribution company, Mad Vision. The takeover gives L'Amy America access to a special French brand of women's glasses, Plein Les Mirettes, that was distributed by Mad ...
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Maui Jim partners with Manchester United
In an unusual move, Maui Jim is spending a seven-digit amount for an exclusive deal as supplier of corrective eyewear and sunglasses to the members of the famous British Manchester United football club. No other brand of eyewear has associated its name with such a big, internationally recognized football property.The ...
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Mykita further expands retail concept
Mykita plans to further expand its store network in the next couple of years. Currently, the Berlin-based eyewear brand has 18 mono-brand stores worldwide, partly company-owned and managed and partly franchised. By end of February, Mykita will open its first store in Spain in the city of Barcelona. It will ...
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Alcon posts strong results, spin-off planned for Q2
Alcon, the eyecare division of Novartis, saw sales increase by 5 percent in constant currencies for the full year 2018. The surgical business grew by 7 percent in constant currencies, led by the company's advanced intraocular lenses, as well as continued growth in consumables. In the Vision Care segment, sales ...
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Thai Optical hires new managers after lower results
The Thai Optical Group (TOG) said that its sales and service revenues fell by 1.92 percent in 2018 to 1.842 billion baht (€52.2m-$59.3m), while net profit declined by 20.40 percent to 146.0 million baht (€4.1m-$4.7m) due to lower sales and higher selling and administrative costs.Meanwhile, the company has reorganized its ...
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Titan Eyeplus to double its network
Titan Company of Bangalore plans to double the number of its optical retail stores in India. Titan launched Titan Eyeplus, its third major venture, in March 2007. Since then, it has built the eyewear division into a 200-city network of, depending on the source, 470 or 550 stores. The former ...
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Good marks for an expanded Opti fair
The Munich trade show recorded positive reactions from visitors and exhibitors at the Messe München fairgrounds last month. Held on Jan. 25-27, the international trade show saw about 28,000 visitors per day pass through the turnstiles – more or less in line with the previous year. The fair's 631 exhibitors ...
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A hard Brexit would affect the eyewear trade in Europe
Judging from the latest report on European trade flows published by Spectaris, the German ophthalmic optics industry association, which uses statistics for the year 2017, the U.K. is the third-largest importer of eyewear in the European Union. The overwhelming vote given by the British Parliament against a proposed agreement with ...
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Hal’s stake in Safilo goes back below 50%
Hal Holding, the Curaçao-registered holding company that controls Safilo through Multibrands Italy, cut its stake in the eyewear company to 49.84 percent on Jan. 11 from the 50.75 percent interest it held after the completion of an issue of new shares worth nearly €150 million.Before the cash call carried out ...
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Safilo takes the Levi’s brand from FGX and Sun Hing
Safilo announced a global license agreement for the important Levi's brand. The contract will start in January 2020 and run until November 2024, with the possibility of renewing it for five years until 2029. The first collection will be launched in spring/summer 2020.Safilo stressed that the license offers an important ...
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Sun Hing wants to beef up its eyewear distribution business
The Hong Kong-based company says it plans to expand its sales network to broaden its client base and seek distribution opportunities in Asia, especially in China. It also intends to optimize its portfolio by phasing out non-performing brands and markets to release resources to high-potential opportunities.According to its latest financial ...
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Marchon and Safilo trade regional managers
Marchon Eyewear has appointed a former Safilo executive, Matteo Gaeta, as managing director of its Asia-Pacific unit, effective this month. He will be based in Hong Kong and be a member of Marchon's global management team, reporting directly to Marchon's president and chief executive, Nicola Zotta.Gaeta is taking the place ...
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Nau!, the Italian eyewear franchising king’s concept works out
Nau can truly lay claim to a positive outcome from its special business model. Founded in 2004 as an entirely franchised operation with a private label collection, the international, Italian-based optical retail chain rounded out 2018 with 163 points of sale and annual revenues of €39 million, achieving an expansion ...
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A credit crunch affects Italian producers
The numerous small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the various Italian industrial clusters suffered a drop in bank financing of €57 billion during the 2010-17 period, and the situation has not improved since then. Two out of ten of the banks located in their territories closed their doors during the ...
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Som Eyewear is pushing its branded lines
Like many other Italian eyewear manufacturers, Som Eyewear is still making mostly glasses for others on an OEM basis. It will participate in the Opti fair in Munich later this week to present its six-year old EBlock line of eyewear as well as its first branded line produced under license, ...
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Ukrainian scientists have developed a biological eyeglass frame
A Ukrainian eyewear manufacturer, Ochis, has designed an organic eyeglass frame that is fully made of biological polymers such as coffee, flax and oils. These polymers completely degrade 100 times faster than plastic and, once the frame is broken, can even be used as a fertilizer in agricultural fields, the ...
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Johnson & Johnson Vision launches Acuvue contact lens recycling program in the U.K.
Johnson & Johnson Vision is launching the U.K.'s first free nationwide recycling program for all contact lenses. The program, available for all soft contact lens wearers regardless of the brand of their lenses, enables consumers to recycle their lenses as well as the blister and foil packaging. Out of 3.7 ...
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More focus is needed on ROI, says Safilo’s new chief executive
Safilo will have to focus more on the return on investment by becoming “obsessive” about execution, stressed the Safilo group's chief executive, Angelo Trocchia, in an interview granted to Eyewear Intelligence after nearly a year in the job. We feel that this and other interesting points raised in the interview ...
