EssilorLuxottica
| EssilorLuxottica SA
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | SA |
| ISIN | FR0000121667 |
| founding | 1972 |
| Seat |
Charenton-le-Pont , France
|
| management |
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| Number of employees | 150,000 |
| sales | 17.39 billion euros (2019) |
| Branch | Optics |
| Website | www.essilor-luxottica.com |
| As of December 31, 2019 | |
EssilorLuxottica was created in October 2018 from the merger of Essilor International SA with Luxottica SpA. It is a global optical company with headquarters in Charenton-le-Pont on the southern edge of Paris . Its shares are traded on the Paris Stock Exchange as part of the CAC40 .
history
As the company emerged from several mergers , the development stories of the most important companies involved are described below.
The company's history began with the Association Fraternelle des Ouvriers Lunetiers . It originated in France in 1848 as the forerunner of the opticians' union . The name Essel , which was to last until 1964, was derived from the abbreviation for Societé Lunetiers - SL. The inventor of the bifocal lens , the native American John Louis Borsch Jr. (1873–1929), founded the company Télégic in 1910 . In 1956, Télégic manufactured the first spectacle lens from the lightweight, organic material CR 39 under the name Orma . Georges Lissac founded the company Lentilles Ophtalmiques Spéciales - LOS in 1948 . The company is later renamed Lentilles Ophtalmiques Rationnelles - LOR . In the 1950s, the first rimless - not drilled, but milled - thread glasses , the Nylor glasses , are introduced on the market. Bernard Maintenaz von Essel invented the first progressive lens in the same year . In 1955 the Societé industrial de Lunietterie was founded. LOR and Télégic merged with each other in 1966, which in turn merged with SIL in 1969 to form Silor , the Société Industrielle Lentilles Ophtalmiques Rationelles . In 1972 ESSEL and SILOR merged to form Essilor International SA and three years later went public as the first optical company . Essilor bought the company Optische Anstalt Emil Ehinger in Freiburg im Breisgau , founded in 1920 , which had been the general agency in Germany since 1958.
In 1976 the company took over Optik GmbH in Braunschweig in order to secure further know-how. The first Asian production facilities were founded in 1979 in Bataan , Philippines . In the years that followed, many more production facilities and distribution centers followed. After the German reunification , parts of the Rathenower Optische Werke were bought up in 1991 - these had been among the strongest and most influential glass manufacturers in Germany until the separation of Germany. In 2000 a joint venture was entered into with the Japanese lens manufacturer Nikon .
In 2008, the Swiss grinding machine manufacturer Satisloh Holding AG, which emerged from the Wetzlar company Loh Optikmaschinen and the Swiss company Satis Vakuum, was bought by Schweiter Technologies AG for 340 million euros.
In October 2018, the merger announced in January 2017 with the Italian company Luxottica took effect. The group thus became the global market leader with a 30% share. It was not until the beginning of March 2018 that the EU Commission approved “the four-year merger between the French eyeglass lens and lens manufacturer Essilor and the Italian manufacturer of eyeglass frames, Luxottica”.
In the last full reporting year (2017) before the merger, Essilor achieved a profit of 1.248 billion euros with around 67,000 employees and sales of 7.49 billion euros, Luxottica with around 85,000 employees and sales of 9.157 billion euros 1.301 billion euros.
In July 2019, the EssilorLuxottica Group announced that it was interested in taking over GrandVision . An agreement on this has already been reached with HAL Holding as the main shareholder of GrandVisions.
Products
The company's best-known product is the Varilux progressive lens , which is now available in many different versions. Fast product life cycles and an accumulation of new product launches are hallmarks of more and more saturated markets that eyeglass lens manufacturers are facing.
In addition, organic and mineral silicate single vision lenses are produced under various manufacturers ' brands , with coatings and refinements to reduce reflections and with a radiation- absorbing effect, mainly from materials developed in-house. Since 1990, Essilor has also been selling self-tinting plastic lenses from Transitions Optical Inc. , which is a merger with PPG Industries from Pittsburgh in the USA .
Essilor in Europe
In 2013 Essilor still had four mass production facilities in Europe, three of which are in France and one in Ireland.
Essilor Germany
One year after the merger of Essel and Silor in 1972, Essilor took over the Freiburg- based Optische Anstalt Emil Ehinger GmbH. This company had worked closely with Essel for a long time before it took over its general agency in Germany in 1958. Three years later, in 1976, the Braunschweiger Optik GmbH was taken over. Optik GmbH in Braunschweig , founded in 1945, had been Silor's sole agency in Germany since 1960. In 1997 Essilor opened an ultra-modern logistics center in Hanau . It is the only fully automated warehouse in Europe for the picking of spectacle lenses for opticians. In 2000, part of the former Rathenower Optical Works was taken over by Essilor. This production area was closed in 2013. To this day, Freiburg (administration) and Braunschweig (production) are Essilor's locations in Germany; around 450 people are employed there. The Varilux X series varifocal lens for Germany and Austria has been manufactured in the Braunschweig plant since 2017 .
As worldwide, Essilor is committed to good vision in Germany and organizes eye tests for disadvantaged people and provides them with corrective glasses. The focus is on the Special Olympics . The lens manufacturer has been supporting this sports organization for mentally and multiply disabled athletes since 2004 as part of the comprehensive health program Healthy Athletes. Every year in October, Essilor shows its social commitment with numerous campaigns relating to World Sight Day on October 10, as well as screenings that the company organizes together with technical schools in SOS Children's Villages .
Cartel agreements
In June 2010 the German Federal Cartel Office imposed fines totaling 115 million euros on several lens manufacturers and the Central Association of Opticians for cartel agreements.
The following companies were affected:
- The two German Essilor branches Essilor GmbH and Rupp + Hubrach Optik GmbH, Bamberg,
- Carl Zeiss Vision GmbH, Aalen,
- Rodenstock , Munich
- Hoya Lens Deutschland GmbH, Mönchengladbach.
Essilor Austria
The company has existed in Austria since 1969, initially as the Austrian branch of the German general agent of Essel , Emil Ehinger, then, in 1983, it merged with the Swarovski optics division . From the 1970s to the 1990s, the company shared with Zeiss and Hugo Michtner - Rodenstock practically the entire Austrian eyewear and glasses market with its own prescription grinding shops in Vienna . Essilor Austria GmbH has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the French Essilor International SA since 1995
On April 1, 2013, the company with 45 employees moved to Brunn am Gebirge and looks after the Austrian opticians as well as the locations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Essilor Switzerland
In Switzerland, Essilor is represented by Essilor (Suisse) SA in Geneva and a branch in Zurich.
Web links
- Official website of the international company
- www.essilor.com Official website of the French company
- Official website of the Italian company
Individual evidence
- ↑ Legal Notice. EssilorLuxottica, accessed on October 23, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Full year 2019 results. In: essilorluxottica.com. March 6, 2020, accessed on March 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Schweiter Technologies, media release from June 16, 2008 ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ EssilorLuxottica is making headway in terms of sales. Börse Online , October 22, 2018, accessed on October 23, 2018 .
- ↑ "Fusione since 50 miliardi di euro tra Luxottica e la francese Essilor" . In: Repubblica.it . January 16, 2017 ( repubblica.it [accessed January 16, 2017]).
- ↑ Movement in a profitable industry: cards are being reshuffled orf.at, March 17, 2018, accessed March 17, 2018.
- ↑ Annual Report 2017-2018. (PDF) Essilor, April 2018, accessed on October 23, 2018 (English).
- ↑ Annual Report 2017. (PDF) Luxottica, March 27, 2018, accessed on October 23, 2018 (English).
- ↑ boerse.ard.de: Ray-Ban buys Apollo accessed on July 31, 2019
- ↑ Production sites. Essilor website, accessed August 13, 2013 .
- ↑ Essilor: Campaign for World Day of Sight " . In: optic and vision . September 13, 2016 ( optic-und-vision.de [accessed on August 16, 2017]).
- ↑ Seeing is the future. Essilor GmbH, Braunschweig, May 2017, archived from the original ; accessed on August 16, 2017 .
- ↑ Essilor group expands aid for SOS Children's Villages. In: eyebizz.de. February 24, 2020, accessed June 12, 2020 .
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of June 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (Press release of the Federal Cartel Office of June 10, 2010)
- ↑ Peter Muehlbauer: 115 million euros fine for eyeglass lens manufacturers and opticians' association. In: heise.de. June 12, 2010, accessed March 14, 2020 .