Businessman Leonardo del Vecchio, who has died at the age of 87, created the glass company that owns brands including Ray-Ban and used his billions to become one of the most influential figures in Italian finance.
Del Vecchio grew up in an orphanage from childhood and amassed a fortune of billions of euros in one of the most famous rags-to-money stories in Italy’s post-war economic recovery.
According to Forbes, at the end of 2021, he was Italy’s second richest person behind only Giovanni Ferrero of the Nutella-making group.
As is common in Italy, Del Vecchio, president of the eyeglass maker EssilorLuxottica, did not retire quietly and, if anything, continued his business activities into the 80s.
In 2018, he sealed a major merger deal to combine the Luxottica company, which he founded in 1961, with France’s Essilor.
In addition, his Delfin holding company is the largest shareholder in Italian financial services conglomerate Mediobanca and a major stake in the insurance company Generali, which places him at the center of the country’s boardroom intrigues.
Del Vecchio was born into poverty. His father, who sold fruits and vegetables, died when he was young, and his mother handed him over to a Milanese orphanage at the age of seven because she could not afford to raise him.
He learned metalworking in a tool shop before setting up a business supplying components for glasses in Agordo, a village in the Dolomite foothills in north-eastern Italy, where land was offered to new companies.
Fashion & Deals
After a rough start when it almost closed, the company began making its own glasses a decade later and expanded rapidly in the 1980s when Del Vecchio valued making glasses as a fashion accessory rather than a necessity. Saw.
He signed licensing deals with Giorgio Armani in 1988 and continues to work with other luxury brands such as Bulgari, Chanel, Prada and Valentino.
The acquisitions were also part of the Del Vecchio strategy.
In 1999, the company bought the famous Ray-Ban brand and acquired Oakley in California, as well as retail chains in North America and Australia.
practical manager
Like many aging Italian entrepreneurs, critics say Del Vecchio struggled to separate himself from his creation, failing to relinquish control and designate a successor.
He has six children from three relationships and remarried his second wife in 2010.
For a decade he loosened his grip on his company, passing the reins to Andrea Guerra, while remaining president of Luxottica.
But disagreements with Guerra led to his abrupt exit in the summer of 2014, and del Vecchio returned to Luxottica’s Milan headquarters as the driving force.
Former employees say he became increasingly involved in even minor matters, like telling employees how to pack boxes for office moves.
Del Vecchio was also caught in a series of boardroom battles and a protracted struggle over how to divide top jobs between the Italian and French camps following the Essilor Luxottica deal.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.