Kindy, a large French manufacturer of socks, has bought Blanchard, a smaller one that chose to specialize in sports socks a few years ago after running into serious financial problems. Balanchard joins Kindy with a 51 percent stake in a modern manufacturing facility in Poland that reportedly produces 140,000 pairs a year. Besides its own brand, Thyo, it is the licensee of Aigle for socks. Blanchard is reportedly paying €582,000 for selected assets of Blanchard, which has annual sales of about €3 million. For its part, Kindy is the licensee of Le Coq Sportif and Eider for socks, and it has its own line of horse-riding socks, called Equinox.

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