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FINLAND’S FISKARS SAYS it has agreed to buy luxury home goods maker Waterford Wedgwood, whose brands include Waterford crystal and Wedgwood china, for €390 million.
The Finnish home, garden and outdoor products maker said the purchase of WWRD from KPS Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, is part of its strategy to become a leader in the premium home and lifestyle products market.
KPS has bought the company for €107 million after it went into receivership in 2009.
Last year, seven thousands private donations helped save a historic collection of Wedgewood pottery by raising €3.5 million to save the museum in Britain where it was being kept. The company’s massive pension debt had threatened the future of the museum.
Fiskars Corp., which also owns the Ittala and Royal Copenhagen brands, said the deal is subject to an antitrust filing in the US and is expected to close in July.
WWRD has 226 stores and employs 3,800 people in 14 countries. Its brands also include Royal Doulton, Royal Albert and Rogaska.
- Additional reporting from AFP.
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Without being funny, how do they point at the text in any way accurately?
It’s for vision impaired people, who can see that there is text there, but cannot read it.
This is a great piece of news…..the joy of reading brought back to the visually impaired. What a gift!
Great invention. Now if we could only find it.
Not just for people with vision impairment. I would think reading comprehension could be enhanced by hearing the words as they are being read. If the voice was natural this could be a fantastic device for a lot of people.
Yes , like dyslectic readers. A brilliant invention .
If that was an app that could have been sold to the masses like shazam ( same principal … kind of ) it would have been done years ago…. Well done anyway
Ok. If this is possible why not just take a hi-res photo of the page and have text-to-speech translate that without the need for anyone to point the finger?
The much greater potential now has arrived for language translation say from English to Irish and vice-versa thus eliminating expensive and unnecessary paper use.
What a great machine
Why not use a kindle reader with text to speech on?
Great news.
Would it work for foreign text? Nifty idea.
have your say