Sola history

The largest glassmaker in the world, Pilkington was founded in the wake of the Industrial Revolution The company began as part of the St Helens Crown Glass Company, a concern founded by the Pilkington and Greenall families in 1826.

Francisco Sola, aged 30, who arrived in New Orleans, La in 1829

Fco Sola, who landed in New Orleans, La in 1831

Sola was founded in 1922 by Mr.

1956: A group of optical technicians in Adelaide, Australia, begin developing plastic lenses.

The company that acquired Sola was AEA Investors, Inc., an investment firm that began to take shape after a conversation during lunch in November 1963.

The company continued to operate in relative obscurity even after it joined the ranks of publicly held enterprises in 1970, but it began to attract more attention after Sir Antony Pilkington expanded the company's glass business internationally.

The company's first diversifying move was the acquisition of an Australian lens maker named Sola International, a purchase made in 1979, four years after Sola had established manufacturing operations in the United States, when it opened a facility in Sunnyvale, California.

The strategy created an investment company Fortune described in a June 5, 1989 article as "like a small greenhouse where companies are repotted and refertilized in carefully controlled light and temperature--a place where all the gardeners have green thumbs."

In 1993, the high minds at AEA turned their attention to Pilkington's Sola, creating a Menlo Park, California, investment partnership, Sola Group Ltd., in September to complete the acquisition of the eyeglass lens manufacturing operations.

EQT was an equity firm founded in 1994.