AN EYE FOR BUSINESS VALLEY EYEGLASS MAKER ALLIES WITH FRENCH DISTRIBUTOR.

Byline: Pam Park Staff Writer

SUN VALLEY - Envisioning increased European sales, a Valley eyeglass maker has framed a business alliance with a major French distributor.

REM, which distributes several brands of fashionable frames and sunglasses from its Sun Valley headquarters, last weekend launched an alliance with Groupe L'Amy, a 190-year-old manufacturer of brands such as Nina Ricci and Lacoste. The deal was announced at SILMO, an international industry show in Paris.

REM President and CEO Mike Hundert said the company previously sold its products through independent distributors in Europe.

The L'Amy chain is a major player in nine countries, and thus an important connection for REM.

``What this does is give us the opportunity to move into these markets with a powerful partner,'' Hundert said. ``We intend to take this strength we're leveraging and explore, and then expand into, additional markets around the world. We expect to be a very strong global player over the next five years.''

Marc Lamy, president of L'Amy, said he anticipates the agreement will be very profitable for both companies.

``Mike Hundert and I share the same evolutionary vision of our trade. The agreement that has been signed combines our expertise in the European market and our distribution in the main European countries - the creative spirit of the West Coast and the power of American brands,'' Lamy said.

Groupe L'Amy will distribute REM's Timberland, Converse and Cosmopolitan brands. REM also makes and distributes eyewear under the names lauren hutton, new york; Esquire; and house labels Daniel Hunter and Rembrand.

Continuing to land big brand names is important to REM's growth, and its distribution network is a factor brand owners consider.

``In order to attract and sign top brand names, we need to have a global story to tell,'' Hundert said.

REM distributes its frame collections in 45 countries and has 42 sales representatives in the United States.

Hundert expects REM's sales to grow 25 percent this year and 20 percent in 2001. Sales have more than doubled since he and his sister, Chief Operating Officer Donna Gindy, bought the business from their parents in 1996.

Founders Gerry Hundert and his wife, Shirley, bought the business, which was then a small Los Angeles-based eyeglass wholesale house, in 1971. Gindy came on board two years later. In 1981, Mike Hundert gave up operating professional ski races in Aspen, Colo., to join the company.

The company's big break came in 1985, when it introduced groundbreaking lightweight eyewear. The Carbon-22 frame focused international attention on REM and positioned the company for another step in its development.

``As the retail market evolved, it became obvious there were opportunities in creating name-brand eyewear,'' Mike Hundert said.

In 1988, the company licensed its first brand name - Converse.

More recently, REM developed compact reading glasses that fold in half at the bridge, and the MicroVision Pen Reader- reading glasses that fit inside a working ballpoint pen.

``The trend in eyeglasses today is smaller is better,'' said Monica L. Monica, spokeswoman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

There's also an increasing market for comfortable, lightweight glasses; bifocals called progressives that seamlessly aid distance, intermediate and reading vision; photochromatics, whose lenses darken in bright light; Splitz glasses, which change from pink to purple or yellow to orange in bright light; and protective eyewear for sports, she said.

About 150 million people in the United States wear some form of eyewear, including 31 million who wear contact lenses. Ophthalmology services in the United States are a $6 billion business, and eyewear sales run close to $12 billion annually, she said.

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Photo: (color) Mike Hundert and sister Donna Gindy own REM Eyewear, an eyeglass-frame maker based in Sun Valley. Sales have more than doubled since they brought out their parents in 1996, and REM now has an alliance with a major distributor in France.

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer