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Italian sunglasses king gifts staff millions

The founder of Italian eyewear giant Luxottica is celebrating his 80th birthday by giving the firm's 8,000 employees in Italy shares worth around €9 million ($10 million).

Published: 20 May 2015 08:34 CEST
Italian sunglasses king gifts staff millions
Luxottica, owner of the Ray-Ban (pictured) and Oakley brands. Photo: Soumyadeep Paul

Leonardo del Vecchio, Italy's second richest man thanks to an eyewear brand sported by star designers including Chanel and Giorgio Armani, is gifting his staff 140,000 Luxottica Group treasury shares, the company said on Tuesday.

“A sincere thank you to the Group's employees in Italy, those at the heart of Luxottica's success,” Del Vecchio said in a statement.

“With this small gesture, I would like to show how important the employees are to me. I truly feel as if we are a family,” he said.

Luxottica, owner of the Ray-Ban and Oakley brands, reported a record profit for 2014 and began 2015 in style, boasting an increase in its first-quarter profit of nearly 34 percent thanks to strong growth sales in North America.

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NORWEGIAN

Norwegian shares plummet by more than half on dilution fears

Shares in Norwegian Air Shuttle plummeted 63 percent when the Oslo Stock Exchange opened on Tuesday, as investors reacted to plans announced last week to convert a massive 44.5bn kroner ($4.3bn) of debt into new shares.

Published: 14 April 2020 13:15 CEST
Norwegian shares plummet by more than half on dilution fears
Is the sun finally about to set on Norwegian? Photo: David Charles Peacock
The fall was so sharp that the exchange was forced to place the shares under “special observation”, a measure taken only when valuations are extremely uncertain. The shares then rebounded and by Tuesday afternoon were trading at about a 30 percent down on where they ended the week last Thursday. 
 
Mads Johannesen, investment economy at the online share trading company Nordnet, said that the company's rescue plan threatened to severely dilute existing shareholders.  
 
“Existing stockholders today wouldn't be left with much if they decide to fully dilute the bonds and convert them into equity, so it doesn't look promising,” he told The Local. “I guess they're going to survive in some form, but how they're going to look coming out the other side depends on the negotiations.” 
 
 
The international brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein on Tuesday cut its target price for the company's shares to zero. 
 
“Norwegian is at the end of the line,” the brokerage's analyst Daniel Roeska wrote in a note to clients announcing the decision. “Rounded to the nearest Krone, existing shares are all but worthless.”
 
The Norwegian government last month made the overwhelming majority of the 3bn kroner in loan guarantees it offered the airline conditional it successfully swapping some of its near 80bn kroner debt pile for equity. 
 
Norwegian is now negotiating with banks and bondholders to convert more than half of its debt into shares, before putting the plan to existing shareholders at a meeting on May 4.
 
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