“EssilorLuxottica sadly announces today that its chairman has died,” the group said in a statement, adding that the board would meet to “determine the next steps”.
Del Vecchio grew up in an orphanage from his childhood to amass a fortune of tens of billions of euros in one of the most famous stories of enrichment in Italy’s post-war economic recovery.
“Leonardo Del Vecchio was a great Italian. His story, from an orphanage to the leadership of a business empire, looks like a story from another time. But this is an example of today and tomorrow. RIP,” European Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter.
The Italian businessman founded Luxottica in 1961 and built a company that owns the Ray-Ban brand and combines forces with the French Essilor in a major merger in 2018.
He remained CEO of EssilorLuxottica until December 2020, when he handed over the day-to-day management of the company to CEO Francesco Milleri. He had personally supported Miller as head of the Franco-Italian eyewear giant when the joint group was formed.
Del Vecchio’s influence extends beyond his own business, and by the end of 2021, he was the second richest man in Italy after Giovanni Ferrero of the Nutella production group, according to Forbes.
His holding company Delfin is the largest shareholder in the Italian financial services group Mediobanca and has a stake of just under 10% in the largest Italian insurer Generali. It also owns about 7% of the real estate company Covivio, registered in both Paris and Milan.
“With the death of Del Vecchio, Milan has lost one of the most iconic figures in its recent history,” Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala wrote on Twitter.
Shares in Mediobanca fell more than 4% after the reports, Generali fell almost 2.5%, while EssilorLuxottica – in which Delfin holds a controlling stake of 32% – remained unchanged at just under 148 euros per share.
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