Del Vecchio's eight-way inheritance split cracked into an $11.5bn buyout fight

When Luxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio died in June 2022, control of the empire passed through Delfin, a Luxembourg holding company he had divided equally among eight heirs at 12.5% each. Delfin held roughly 32.4% of EssilorLuxottica, the Ray-Ban and Oakley owner formed by the 2017 Essilor-Luxottica merger, plus major positions in UniCredit, Generali and Monte dei Paschi. Professional management stayed in the hands of CEO Francesco Milleri, who took the role in 2020 and added the chairmanship in 2022.

The equal-split design began cracking in 2026. Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, the founder's 31-year-old son, proposed buying the combined 25% held by siblings Luca and Paola in Delfin — a deal reported at $11.5 billion that would lift his own stake from 12.5% to 37.5% and make him by far the largest shareholder in the family vehicle. In an open letter before a pivotal June 30 shareholder meeting he accused Delfin's board of obstructing the plan, writing that 'the issue stopped being financial and became a matter of governance.'

By August 2026 he had stepped down from all his management roles at EssilorLuxottica — chairman of Ray-Ban and chief strategy officer — to, as the company put it, focus on new entrepreneurial projects. Analysts read the resignation as restoring a separation between ownership and management, while a board that replaces Milleri remained the red line: the analyst community viewed a CEO change as negative given his consistent execution.

If completed, the heir's Delfin stake rises from 12.5% to 37.5% — the largest in the vehicle holding 32.4% of EssilorLuxottica plus stakes in UniCredit, Generali and MPS.

Eight equal stakes made every major decision hostage to coalition-building, and the heir with the largest ambition had the strongest incentive to break the deadlock.

The founder left no lead-heir mechanism, no drag-along rights and no buyout formula, so the second generation had to invent one mid-flight.

Delfin's assets — a controlling EssilorLuxottica stake plus Italian financial blue chips — are valuable enough to justify an $11.5bn intra-family transaction.

Management had already been separated from ownership under Milleri, which let the succession fight play out without derailing the operating company.

Equal division among many heirs feels fair at the reading of the will and unworkable a decade later; without a lead-heir or buyout mechanism, the second generation writes its own.

The buyout attempt, the open letter and the management exit left Delfin's board facing a shareholder vote and a family that had stopped being unanimous, while EssilorLuxottica's board publicly backed Milleri. The eight-way holding still stands, but the fight has made one thing explicit: the equal-split era of the Del Vecchio fortune is being renegotiated heir by heir.