FOSTER GRANT

Foster Grant

Foster Grant

Company Perspectives

AAi.FosterGrant, based in Smithfield, RI, owns one of the leading brands of sun and reading glasses in the United States and is also a leading designer of costume jewellery. The FosterGrant brand provides the consumer with eyewear representing exceptional styling, quality and features at competitive prices.

Company History

FosterGrant, Inc. is the leading U.S. marketer of moderately priced sunglasses, and one of America's most recognized brand names. The company also manufactures reading glasses. The company was the first to popularize sunglasses, which had their initial vogue in the 1930s. Foster Grant was well known for its long-running advertising campaign, "Who's behind those Foster Grants?," which it revived in the late 1990s(Griffin, Cara, Judy, 2002). The company passed through many different owners since the 1970s. It is now a subsidiary of Aai.FosterGrant, Inc.

Aai, formerly Accessories Associates, Inc., purchased the company in 1996 and moved its headquarters to Rhode Island. Foster Grant maintains sales and marketing facilities as well as warehouses in Rhode Island. Its manufacturing facilities are located in Rhode Island and overseas in Asia and Africa. Foster Grant sunglasses are sold through many mass-market outlets in the United States, including Target, Wal-Mart, and the Sports Authority. The company also sells its sunglasses in Mexico, Canada, England, and Germany, and is expanding into other European markets and into South America as well.

Business of the company

AAi.FosterGrant owns one of the largest portfolios of brands in the eyewear industry. "This acquisition makes sense in every way," said John Ranelli, chairman, president and ceo of AAi.FosterGrant. "By maintaining our focus on quality and service, we will have excellent opportunities to grow both businesses by expanding in current channels and entering new markets."

Ron Peer, Magnivision's president said, "I am confident this combination will open doors and facilitate growth opportunities through cross-selling and international expansion." (Mendelson, Seth, 2005)

U.S. sales of reading glasses grew 19% from 1998 to 2003, to nearly $400 million, according to Jobson Optical Research and the Sunglasses Association of America. The upward trend is expected to continue as the U.S. population above 40 years old increases from 126 million in 2003 to nearly 140 million in 2010, according to the US Census Bureau.

The Magnivision acquisition increases the company's financial strength and stability by adding significant non-seasonal reading glass sales, which provide a counterbalance to the company's seasonal sunglass and jewelry businesses.

Company Is Growing with New Products

LEOMINSTER- In, the span of a season, Fosta-Tek has doubled both the number of employees and its sales: not too shabby for a company that barely survived the knife of liquidators.

In August 1990, the Foster Grant Corp. declared bankruptcy, leaving customers, creditors and hundreds of employees twisting in the wind waiting to see what would become of the fallen optics giant.

Almost one year later to the day, the Technical Products Division of Foster Grant was sold to Fosta-Tek Optics, Inc., a newly-created company headed by John Morrison Jr., President and majority stockholder.

In August 1991, the embryonic Fosta-Tek company employed approximately 45 employees, all former Foster-Grant ...