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NEW YORK -- In what could have a dramatic effect on the eyewear business, Luxottica Group SpA announced Thursday that it intends to purchase the industry's dominant U.S. specialty retailer, Sunglass Hut.
In a joint statement, the two firms said an acquisition subsidiary of Luxottica will tender an offer, likely within the next two weeks, to purchase all outstanding shares of Sunglass Hut International common stock for $11.50 per share in cash for a total of roughly $462 million. The offer, plus the assumption of Sunglass Hut debt, would result in a deal worth about $653 million.
Rothschild Inc. and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter were the financial advisors for Agordo, Italy-based Luxottica and Coral Gables, Fla.-based Sunglass Hut, respectively. Sunglass Hut operates 1,962 retail units around the world, 1,304 of which are solely sunglass stores and 430 which offer both sunglasses and fashion watches from its Watch Station division. An additional 228 stores are purely watch stores.
Luxottica, the largest maker of mid-and premium-priced eyewear, manufactures more than 2,650 styles of eyewear in six facilities in Italy that are sold worldwide. The company acquired the LensCrafters retail chain in 1995 and the Ray-Ban brand of eyewear through its 1999 purchase of Bausch & Lomb's sunglass business.
Luxottica chairman Claudio Del Vecchio did not respond to requests to discuss the deal. In a statement, Del Vecchio described the acquisition as "the next step in Luxottica's strategy to penetrate the retail market in North America," referring to its LensCrafters purchase. "We are bringing under the same umbrella over 2,500 stores by combining the leading sunglass retail chain...