MILAN, Italy—In its investor’s day conference call with the financial community, following the release of its preliminary results for 2007 last week, Safilo Group’s (SFL: MI) Claudio Gottardi, CEO, elaborated further on the company’s global retail network expansion, growth which will consist of both organic new-store openings as well as acquisitions to bring the company to a total of about 700 to 800 stores within the next five years. Besides its sunwear retail expansion, the company is finalizing a new Rx optical retail concept which it expects to unveil in the next few weeks, he said.

In addition, in response to a question from an analyst, Gottardi said the company has begun its discussions to renegotiate the Gucci license, even though the current agreement is not due to expire until the end of 2010. He said, “We have three years ahead of us and we feel very confident that an agreement will be reached,” adding that Gucci has not engaged in any talks with other companies.

He noted that Gucci and its related brands, along with Giorgio Armani brands and Christian Dior represent about 55 percent of Safilo’s sales, which were 1.19 billion Euros in 2007.

Safilo will focus on developing its retail network in emerging markets like China, India, Russia and Latin America, and is building an infrastructure and management team to develop the business, Gottardi noted.

He added that the company is “confident in its current portfolio of brands,” and Gottardi pointed to a more “selected distribution” approach for many of these brands, noting that this is a general trend in the market as high-end licensors are looking for more exclusive distribution. Proprietary or ‘house’ brands, including Carrera, Optyl and Oxydo, he noted, will receive renewed attention, with a plan for these to increase their share of the company’s total brand mix, he said.