Nikon shares are up by a big 21 percent following news that Ray-Ban owner, EssilorLuxottica SA, is considering increasing its stake in the historic optics manufacturer. That’s according to a Bloomberg report by way of Nikon Eye. The same report, obtained from an anonymous source, states that the Franco-Italian company, best known for housing luxury eyewear brands such as Persol and Oakley, “is considering a move to boost its Nikon stake to around 20%”.
Currently, EssilorLuxottica SA has close to a 9-percent stake in Nikon, up from the 5.1 percent purchased in October of last year, when Reuters reported that the holding company invested €170 million (approximately $187 / £142 / AU$275 million) in the Japanese optics manufacturer. This was before Facebook owner, Meta, invested $3.5 billion in EssilorLuxottica SA, which creates a tenuous link between Nikon and the tech conglomerate.
Interestingly, Nikon Eye theorized that the Milan-based EssilorLuxottica SA “could open the door for Italian design influence on future Nikon products”. Should this come to fruition, it wouldn’t be the first time that Nikon has incorporated Italian design into its products. Italian car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro famously worked on a number of Nikon cameras, including the Nikon D4, Nikon D800, and Nikon Df. He is perhaps best known among fans of the ‘Big N’ for designing the famous red stripe that originally appeared on the Nikon F3 (1980) and has featured on a huge variety of Nikon cameras since, including most Z-Series cameras today.
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