Del Vecchio: we are waiting for a counteroffer for Cole from China

During a conference on Made in Italy in Vicenza, yesterday morning Leonardo Del Vecchio, president of Luxottica, made a few statements to reporters about the Cole National affair. 'We are waiting for a counteroffer from China' Del Vecchio said.

'Every time a takeover bid is made you know others will also make one so you have to make your own move and wait for the reactions. We'll see', Del Vecchio pointed out, 'if this competitor has launched a higher offer than ours, they must find the money in a short time otherwise our contract with Cole will survive and therefore we just have to wait for the reply from the Antitrust in the Usa to finalize'.

Last week in fact Moulin International, the Chinese company that is competing with the group headed by Leonardo Del Vecchio for the purchase of the American chain with a counter bid of 25 dollars against the Italian bid of 22.5, made it known that one of its sources of funding 'is not able to provide funding in accordance with the terms originally stipulated and set out in the Moulin acquisition proposal'.

'We are just waiting for the Chinese to find the money and so uphold their offer', Del Vecchio continued, 'and then it will be up to us to go in again, if we want to. If they don't find the money, our offer still holds. Cole has in fact recommended our offer to the investors and we are therefore waiting for it to be accepted'.

Lastly, with regard to the Us Antitrust investigation, Del Vecchio concluded: ''we have provided all our data and we expect an answer within 30 days; at the most they'll ask us to close a few stores in Chicago or in Atlanta, but we expect this'.