Targetti news - FINANCE - TARGETTI GROUP: excorporates lighting activities for cinemas and theatres (Tivoli brand) to constitute a joint venture with the Chinese company Neo-Neon

Through its subsidiary Targetti North America Inc., the Targetti Group has just signed a partnership agreement with the Chinese company Neo-Neon, one of the worlds principal producers of LED technology lighting systems.

The operation provides for Targetti North America Inc. to spin off its activities in the cinema and theatre lighting sector and to confer them upon a newly constituted company to be known as Tivoli LLC, which is to be controlled on a 50/50 basis by Targetti North America and Neo-Neon.

Neo-Neon will pay to Targetti North America a cash consideration comprised between 2.5 and 3.0 million US dollars. In fact, this amount may vary in accordance with a parameter anchored to the management results and will enable the Targetti Group to realize a capital gain comprised between 1.0 and 1.5 million US dollars.

By means of the new subject with its mixed Italian-Chinese capital, the Targetti Group is creating the basis for strengthening its presence in the United States, assuring the availability of a supply package that will enable it to aspire to leadership in this sector.

The new partnership will be able to count on the contribution of a solid brand reputation and commercial know-how of the USA market by Tivoli and the Targetti Group, while the Chinese Neo-Neon will contribute the vast productive capacity of their establishments and the outstanding competitiveness of their products from both the technological and the price point of view.

As a result of this operation, the Targetti Group will be brought into contact with the productive excellence of a Chinese company that is among the principal producers of linear lighting systems based on LED technology and will convert the entire Tivoli offer into this technology.

LED light bulbs represent the technology of the future in the interior lighting sector, making possible considerable advantages in terms of cost that are due to the absence of maintenance expenditure and a low level of energy consumption.

“This operation – commented Lorenzo Targetti, Chief Executive Officer of Targetti S.p.A. – represents an important quality jump for the Group and its strategy of expansion in the United States, a country that is giving clear signs of economic recovery and where we have every intention of making a substantial effort”.

“From a technological point of view – as Lorenzo Targetti went on to say – we are one of the first operators to invest in LED technology, which is destined to revolutionize the traditional lighting canons: we have decided to do this with a partner capable of backing us with a truly formidable productive base and expressing the innovative capacity and competitiveness of a country like China in an altogether optimal manner.

Targetti North America recorded a turnover of 6.3 million Euro in the first nine months of 2003, together with a profit of 225,000 Euro. Tivoli, a brand possessed by Targetti North America, is the historical leader in the United States as regards the production of lighting guides for such large spaces as cinemas, theatres and stadiums.

Neo-Neon Ltd., a Chinese undertaking with headquarters in Canton, has developed in the course of 20 years of activity - to the point of becoming one of the world’s leading producers – an integrated production capacity for LED technology lighting system commencing from the production of single components right through to the design of entire decorative lighting systems.

The Targetti Group, with headquarters in Florence, are one of the leading protagonists in the sector of architectural lighting for both interiors and exteriors. The group companies produce and market sophisticated equipment – a perfect synthesis of technology and design – that illumines important works of art, including Michelangelo’s David, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and the Roman National Archaeological Museum and finds application in wide variety of different environments, among them Piazza della Scala in Milan, Amsterdam’s railway station, the Bilbao Underground, the showrooms of Bulgari, Benetton, Bang & Olufsen, Alfa Romeo and Peugeot and, not least,