Safilo’s 3Q net sales of $326 million in line with forecasts

Safilo’s newly instated chief executive Ms Luisa Delgado, said in a statent that the company is “about on track” to off-set the loss of a licence to produce sunglasses and frames for Armani, which moved its eyewear business to market leader Luxottica from the beginning of this year.Offsetting the loss of the licence to make glasses for Italian fashion house Armani by focusing on its other licences and brands is Safilo’s main objective for 2013, Ms Delgado said.Safilo gave no forecasts of its own for the full year, but a mean estimate from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters points to 2013 net profit of euro 32.3 million for the company.Ms Delgado did not say exactly how much the loss of the Armani licence had cost Safilo, but Luxottica chief executive Andrea Guerra told Reuters in July the licence contributed around 3.5% of its second-quarter wholesale revenue – translating to roughly euro 30 million.Safilo said that had been the first positive third quarter it recorded since it agreed a debt restructuring in 2009 and was rescued by Dutch investment company Hal Holding.As well as investing in its portfolio of brand licences, Safilo is now focusing on the eyewear names its owns, which include Polaroid and Carrera.”The unique equity potential of those brands is not leveraged right now,” Ms Delgado, who took over from former chief Roberto Vedovotto a month ago, said.”I think it would be fair to say that we would see over time potential to double our business in our house brands. The question of course is how fast and what it takes to do that.”Safilo said Europe, where it makes around 40% of its sales, was the only market where sales grew in the third quarter, by 6.3% percent at current exchange rates, although its home market of Italy rained weak.”Outside Italy – even in Spain and Portugal — we are seeing some signs of recovery,” chief financial officer Vincenzo Giannelli said.