Essilux, Milleri confirmed as group leader

"When we announced the merger on October 1, 2018, EssilorLuxottica had a market capitalisation of €46 billion: today it is at more than €90 billion, but our goal is to surpass the €100 billion mark soon." This was stated by Francesco Milleri, president and CEO of Essilux, opening the group's AGM in Paris. "In 2018, our pro forma revenues were around 16 billion. We closed 2023 with revenues of 25.4 billion, up 57% in six years" while "net profit amounted to 1.8 billion six years ago, today it is 2.9 billion with an increase of 66%," Milleri adds, explaining that "in 2018 we distributed dividends of 0.9 billion, six years later we doubled that by distributing dividends of 1.8 billion."

Essilux, evoluzione dalla fusione del 2018

Andamento dei maggiori indicatori del gruppo dal 2018 al 2024

Slide presentata in assemblea

At the beginning of April, the French state had strengthened its position in EssilorLuxottica's capital: the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (Cdc), a French public institution that corresponds to the Italian Cassa e Depositi e Prestiti, had informed the eyewear group that it had individually exceeded the 2% threshold through purchases on the market. The investment of more than 600 million brought the financial arm of the Elysée Palace to directly hold 2.41% of Essilor Luxottica and as a result, the Cdc-Bpifrance aggregate rose to 4% of the capital.

"I would like to reassure all shareholders that we are focused on M&A and I hope that we will be able to show the market that our business will be strong and fast over the next few years," said EssilorLuxottica's chairman and CEO in response to shareholder questions at the meeting.

At the beginning of April the group announced a new acquisition. Luxottica Japan, a subsidiary of EssilorLuxottica, has taken over Washin Optical Co, a Japanese optical retailer with around 70 direct shops in the country. The deal confirms the French-Italian eyewear group's commitment to developing its retail activities in the country, where it already operates around 70 shops - both under the Ray-Ban, Oakley and Oliver Peoples brands and within department stores - and serves thousands of optical customers and partners.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Milleri then reiterated that 'M&A is in our DNA, it was in Leonardo' Del Vecchio's DNA, 'it is in Essilor's DNA. We want to return to it. We had to have clear ideas on how to approach the market, no longer in the traditional way of small expansions'.

"You have to consider," he continued, "that in the specifics of our industry there is nothing so relevant, there is nothing transformational. That is why we have had a moment of consolidation, which has however led to acquisitions around the world'. Returning to the Marcolin dossier, Milleri went on to explain: "We are always players because in the end we are a referent in this market, but for us it would not be a transformational acquisition, it would only add brands to a really rich portfolio: it is not and would not be a strategic acquisition anyway".

EssilorLuxottica today has 'a slightly different approach,' he reiterated: we are going much more on the med-tech side, on the medical side of the eye clinics. On the ophthalmic clinic front in particular, Milleri remarked: 'We are analysing it very carefully, we hope to make the first moves in this market. It is a very delicate market because potential conflicts of interest between those who use our products and our company must be handled with great delicacy and care'. "We are studying," he concluded, "but as usual the pipeline of acquisitions in our group is always very rich and I hope there will be news soon.

"In order to continue writing EssilorLuxottica's beautiful story in our industry, going beyond its boundaries, we have a clear vision based on three main strategic drivers: first and foremost, artificial intelligence and 'wearables'," Milleri said, opening the group's AGM. In particular, 'Ray-Ban Meta, especially with the integration of artificial intelligence, is showing us what the future with wearable devices could look like' while 'one of the most anticipated technology products of the year is Nuance Audio, the glasses that bring together sight and hearing in one product,' Milleri added.

In the strategies of the Italo-French eyeglass lenses and frames giant, there are also 'Med-tech and Big data, which are closely linked: we don't often think about the fact that hundreds of millions of consumers interact with our brands every day, this means that hundreds of millions of data every day help us predict market trends and consumer needs and develop our innovation path," explains Essilux's president and CEO, who "closes the circle with our iconic brands, loved by everyone everywhere in the world: we have a portfolio with more than 150 brands, from eyewear to lens technologies to retail banners."

"EssilorLuxottica remains a young company, a startup with many opportunities ahead of it, from med-tech and luxury to digital," noted EssiLux's president and CEO, continuing: "In these six years" since the merger with the Luxottica founded by Leonardo Del Vecchio "which have included two board terms, the acquisition of GrandVision and more than 100 M&;A transactions, we have built a vertically integrated champion that is unparalleled in the world. At its inception EssilorLuxottica employed 140,000 people: today we are a global community of more than 200,000 employees. Almost half of our employees worldwide are also shareholders in the company. We have around 80,000 employee shareholders, almost twice as many as when we started, confirming their trust in our group. In six years, we have redistributed €4 billion of the value created to our employees, €1 billion in 2023 alone, in the form of bonuses, performance bonuses, share matching, profit sharing and dividends, all in addition to ordinary compensation.

Milleri concluded by mentioning that 'our share price has risen just as much over the past six years: we closed last Friday at EUR 203 per share, almost double the opening price on our first day of trading on the French market,' Milleri summarised.

The stock in Paris closed today's session at 200.30 euro per share with a positive balance of 10% since the beginning of the year and 88% over the last five years.