Essilor.com

Birth of a new Group

 

In 1972, though Essilor was a French business, 45% of its sales were generated by exports. In terms of products, corrective lenses accounted for half of all sales, while frames represented one third.

A winning bet

Essilor became the third-largest optical group in the world

 

Initially rivals, Essel and Silor chose to unite their strengths on 1 January 1972. The short-term aims were threefold:

•  to make a success of the merger

•  to float Essilor on the stock market

•  to found a company with employee stockholders
  
  

Two of these aims were rapidly achieved:

• Valoptec, the association grouping management stockholders, was created in 1972. At that time the association held half the company’s share capital.

• the company was listed on the stock market in 1975.

 

To make a success of the merger, priority was given to making Essilor a real group.

In order to confirm this identity, Essilor:

• concentrated its activity on ophthalmic optics
  The instruments activity was brought together under a single management structure.
  Ancillary activities left over from Essilor’s past were steadily sold off (e.g. compasses, drawing and topography instruments).

• specialized in a single product, the progressive lens, and a single material, plastic
  Little by little, the growth of these two segments enabled them first to equal and then overtake glass lenses; frames were left far behind. In 1976, the launching of the Varilux® Orma® lens provided a potent symbol of the synergies arising from the merger.

• acquired a subsidiary company on the French market, BBGR.

 

It was decided that René Grandperret, formerly of Silor, and Anatole Temkine, formerly of Essel, would hold the chairmanship of Essilor alternately.

 

"Each year, as a symbol, we would hand over to each other a little cube bearing the words ’OK, you’re the boss’ in English" René was chairman in even-numbered years and I took over in odd-numbered years." Anatole Temkine

 

Going international

A strategic turning point

 

In the late 1970s, Essilor expanded its international operations by focusing on the progressive lens and the use of plastics. At the same time, the process of rationalization was intensified. From an exporting business, Essilor began to transform itself into an international company:

• our first two lens manufacturing plants outside of France were inaugurated in the US and Ireland.
  The output was marketed either through local distributors or directly through Essilor subsidiaries, often themselves created by the acquisition of distributors as in Germany.

• A large unit for the manufacture of organic lenses was opened in the Philippines
  Initially intended to supply Asian markets, this plant later spearheaded the production of standard lens products.