Caledonia Investments acquires optics manufacturer Cooke Optics

Management team and day-to-day company activities remain unchanged. Investment will enable faster company growth and development of new lenses.

Caledonia Investments acquires optics manufacturer Cooke Optics. The current Cooke Optics management team, including Les Zellan (Chairman), Robert Howard (Chief Executive Officer) and Alan Merrills (Chief Operating Officer), remain in place, and day-to-day activities at the Leicester-based company will continue unchanged.

“We have been experiencing a sustained period of growth, and the time was right to look for a new investor to help us develop further,” said Les Zellan, Chairman, Cooke Optics. “Caledonia, another historic British company, has a reputation for long term investment and for supporting management teams to grow their businesses. With a strong financial partner in Caledonia, Cooke is in an excellent position to continue designing and making more of our coveted lenses for the film and television industry.”

Cooke now offers more lens series than any other company; every range is designed from the ground up, not repurposed from existing components, and every lens is hand crafted in the Leicester factory.

Cooke’s most recent developments include the S7/i full frame lens range which correctly anticipated the current large format trend; the Panchro/i Classic range which replicate the beloved look of vintage Speed Panchro lenses but with modern housing, mounts and glass; and the Anamorphic/i SF range that adds more exaggerated anamorphic attributes including lens flare and oval bokeh. The company is also behind the lens metadata standard, /i Technology, which captures valuable lens information for use on-set and in post-production.

The latest Cooke lens ranges will be on display on Stand 12.D10 at IBC 2018, held in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 14-18 September 2018.