Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, born in Milan in May 1995 and educated at Bocconi, spent the last week of August handing back the two jobs that made him look like the answer to a succession question. On 25 August 2026, EssilorLuxottica confirmed that its chief strategy officer, who also chaired Ray-Ban, was leaving both roles effective 31 August. MF-Milano Finanza had the story first; according to MF, his resignation letter criticised the management style at the group as distant and impersonal. He said he would remain an active shareholder through Delfin, in which he holds 12.5 per cent. Which is to say he gave up the titles and kept the arithmetic.
The Will
Leonardo Del Vecchio founded Luxottica in Agordo in 1961 and built it into the world’s largest producer and retailer of glasses, merging it with Essilor in 2017-18. He died on 27 June 2022, aged 87, in Segrate. Estimates put his net worth at the time at $24.1 billion, second richest in Italy and 54th in the world.
On 2 July 2022, Bloomberg reported the shape of the will: the fortune divided equally among his wife, six children and a stepson, each of the eight receiving 12.5 per cent of Delfin Sarl, the Luxembourg holding company, with no further instructions about governance. Eight equal slices and no tiebreaker. Equality is a generous instinct and a thin constitution.
Four years on, the eight heirs remain stuck over the execution of the will, as FashionNetwork put it in late August. Bloomberg now frames the contested estate at more than €40 billion, or $46.6 billion; Business Standard, republishing the wire on 30 August, rounded it up to $47 billion in the headline. The numbers vary by outlet. The structure does not.
The Blocked Deal
The interesting part of this year happened before the resignation. In March 2026, Leonardo Maria told the Financial Times he was “close to agreeing a price” to buy the Delfin stakes held by his siblings Luca and Paola, a purchase that would have tripled his holding to 37.5 per cent and made him the family vehicle’s largest single shareholder. Global Banking & Finance, referencing that FT interview, reported the contemplated deal at around $14 billion; no second major outlet has confirmed that figure, and it should be read as one publication’s number rather than a settled price.
It did not happen. Il Sole 24 Ore reported that Delfin’s board blocked the plan over concerns about guarantees. What those concerns were, in financial or legal detail, has not been elaborated anywhere since. By June 2026, according to reporting carried on Euronext, relations between Del Vecchio and chief executive Francesco Milleri had cooled after the failed buyout, with Del Vecchio complaining that Delfin’s board had been uncooperative.
Milleri, born in Città di Castello in 1959, is the longtime lieutenant the founder chose to run the group. He has been chief executive of EssilorLuxottica since June 2022 and chairs Delfin; Romolo Bardin is Delfin’s chief executive. Leonardo Maria had long been considered the heir closest to Milleri, which gives the summer its particular flavour. The reporting describes governance friction and a blocked transaction. It describes nothing more than that, and neither will we.
There is no confirmed litigation. The disagreements are boardroom and estate disagreements, conducted in Luxembourg and Milan by people who own the same asset and read the same will differently.
The Second Exit
He is the second heir to walk. Rocco Basilico, son of Nicoletta Zampillo and the banker Paolo Basilico, founder of the Kairos Group, is the founder’s stepson and one of the eight. His departure as chief wearables officer was announced around 1 December 2025 and took effect in January 2026. Wearables is not a small brief at this company: Basilico was reportedly the first contact with Mark Zuckerberg that led to Meta’s stake in EssilorLuxottica.
Two heirs out of operating roles inside nine months, both retaining their 12.5 per cent. The family’s presence in the business is migrating from the executive floor to the register of shareholders, which is a quieter place to disagree and a more expensive one.
Among the remaining names on Delfin’s roster: Claudio Del Vecchio, born 1956, the eldest son and once described as his father’s heir apparent, who ran Brooks Brothers; Marisa and Clemente Del Vecchio; Luca and Paola, whose stakes were the object of the failed purchase; and Zampillo herself. Forbes estimated Leonardo Maria’s fortune at around $7.5 billion in December 2025 and Claudio’s at around $7.1 billion in February 2026. These are estimates from a magazine, not figures from a filing, and the distinction matters more than usual when the underlying asset is a private Luxembourg holding company.
The Buyback
Three days after the resignation, on 28 August, EssilorLuxottica announced it would buy back more than €800 million ($932 million) of its own stock, Bloomberg reported, to shore up investor confidence following the share slide and the heir’s exit, and to demonstrate the company’s belief in “its value creation and long-term prospects”.
The slide is the context. The stock had fallen about 40 per cent year to date, leaving a market capitalisation of roughly €75.5 billion, per FashionNetwork. Set that against the operating business: 2025 revenue of €28.491 billion, operating income of €3.379 billion, net income of €2.443 billion, total assets of €63.895 billion. Delfin holds 32.4 per cent of the company, according to Reuters; Wikipedia’s entry lists 32 per cent of shares and 31 per cent of voting rights.
A buyback is a company buying its own shares because it thinks the market has mispriced them. It is also, when announced in the same week an heir resigns, a statement to shareholders about who is running the shop. Both readings are available. The company only offered one.
The Other Holdings
Delfin is not merely the eyewear vehicle, which is why an argument among eight siblings and a stepson has an audience in Italian finance. Total assets are estimated at around $55 billion as of 2025. Beyond the EssilorLuxottica stake, Delfin is the biggest shareholder in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena at 17.5 per cent, holds around 10 per cent of Assicurazioni Generali, some 28 per cent of the property group Covivio, and a minority 2.7 per cent of UniCredit.
That portfolio was assembled by one man who kept his own counsel and left the eight of them a holding company with no instructions on how to vote it. Every governance question that arises at MPS or Generali now passes, at some level, through a family that cannot agree on the execution of a will four years after the funeral. Nobody in Milan has failed to notice.
What Leonardo Maria does next is unclear from the record. He has said he remains an active shareholder through his 12.5 per cent, which in a company governed by consensus among equals is a position of some leverage and no authority. He can block. He cannot direct. That was true when he was chief strategy officer, and it is true now that he is not.
Eight equal heirs, one €40 billion estate, and a founder who thought fairness would be enough. The Ray-Ban chairmanship is vacant. The 12.5 per cent is not.
