How to Divide an Empire Fairly: The Del Vecchio Succession
Issue No. 1
How to Divide an Empire Fairly
All is fair in love and war. But what does fairness mean when family and legacy are at stake?
By Jagneet Malhotra
07/24/2026
I thought this was going to be a story about inheritance. It wasn’t.
When Leonardo Del Vecchio died in June 2022, much of the coverage focused on the size of the fortune he left behind and the people who would inherit it. The arrangement sounded simple: eight heirs, each receiving an equal share of Delfin, the holding company through which the family owned its most important investments.
The number eight was repeated so often that I made the same assumption many readers probably did: eight children.
That was wrong.
Leonardo had six children. The other two equal shareholders were his widow, Nicoletta Zampillo, and Rocco Basilico, her son from a previous marriage.
The Family Behind Delfin
Leonardo Del Vecchio’s six children came from three different relationships.
With his first wife, Luciana Nervo, he had Claudio, Marisa and Paola Del Vecchio. Claudio previously held senior roles at Luxottica and later owned Brooks Brothers.
With Nicoletta Zampillo, he had Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, EssilorLuxottica’s Chief Strategy Officer and President of Ray-Ban. Leonardo and Nicoletta divorced and later remarried.
With his former partner, Sabina Grossi, he had Luca and Clemente Del Vecchio.
Two additional family members completed the group of eight shareholders: Nicoletta, Leonardo’s widow, and Rocco, Nicoletta’s son from a previous marriage and Leonardo’s stepson.
Following Leonardo’s death and Nicoletta’s subsequent transfer of part of her interest to Rocco, Delfin came to have eight equal shareholders, each holding 12.5 per cent.
The percentages were equal. The relationships, histories and connections to the business were not.
Several branches of one family, each receiving 12.5 per cent. That changed the story.
This was not simply a father giving each child the same thing. Leonardo had chosen to treat eight people with different relationships to him, to one another and to the business as equal owners of the institution holding his life’s work.
Why?
The obvious answer is fairness. The more I looked into his life, the less obvious that answer became.
Leonardo was born in Milan in 1935. His father died before he was born. His mother, unable to support the family alone, placed him in an orphanage. At fourteen, he left school and became an apprentice to a tool and die maker.
It is easy to tell that story too neatly: poor child overcomes adversity, apprentice becomes billionaire, orphan builds an empire. That version is inspiring, but it misses what matters.
Toolmaking taught Leonardo to see a finished product as a collection of connected decisions. A frame was not one thing. It was materials, hinges, moulds, measurements and tolerances. One weak part could compromise the whole.
In 1961, he moved to Agordo and established Luxottica. The company initially produced components for other eyewear manufacturers, then gradually expanded until it could make a complete pair of glasses itself.
This was the beginning of a pattern. Leonardo moved from components into finished frames, from manufacturing into distribution, from distribution into retail, and from producing for other brands into owning brands himself.
Luxottica bought LensCrafters in 1995, Ray-Ban in 1999, Sunglass Hut in 2001 and Oakley in 2007. It also built relationships with fashion houses that helped turn eyewear from a medical necessity into an important part of personal style.
These were acquisitions, but they were also pieces of a larger design. Most businesses occupy one part of an industry. Leonardo kept moving through the entire chain. He wanted the factories, the brands, the distribution, the stores and the relationship with the customer.
People often describe this as vertical integration. That is accurate, but clinical. Leonardo did not simply build a bigger eyewear company. He spent decades removing the distance between what Luxottica made and the person who eventually wore it.
Maybe that was about control. Maybe it was about quality. Maybe, for Leonardo, the two could not be separated.
The distinction matters because the last major transaction of his career required him to work differently.
In 2017, Luxottica and Essilor announced a combination valued at roughly €50 billion. Luxottica made frames and controlled powerful consumer brands and retail networks. Essilor was the global leader in ophthalmic lenses. Together, they could control almost everything surrounding a pair of glasses.
The merger completed Leonardo’s industrial vision. It also forced him to surrender something he had relied on for most of his life: the final word.
The combined company was supposed to operate as a partnership of equals. Leonardo became Executive Chairman. Hubert Sagnières, the man who had led Essilor, became Executive Vice-Chairman. On paper, neither side would have the upper hand.
In practice, it did not take long for the arrangement to strain. Within months, the two sides were fighting over who would lead the company and how the businesses would be brought together. Delfin, Leonardo’s holding company, began arbitration proceedings.
By May 2019, both sides were ready for a different approach. They settled their disputes and handed more responsibility to two trusted executives: Francesco Milleri, Leonardo’s longtime lieutenant and then CEO of Luxottica, and Laurent Vacherot, CEO of Essilor International. Their job was to move the integration forward.
In December 2020, Sagnières decided to step away from his executive responsibilities. To preserve the balance of power, Leonardo did the same. Executive authority passed to Milleri, who became CEO of EssilorLuxottica, and Paul du Saillant, Vacherot’s successor at Essilor International, who became Deputy CEO.
Consider what that represented. Leonardo had spent more than fifty years assembling control over every important part of his business. In the final chapter of his career, he entered a structure in which control had to be shared.
The builder had to learn governance. He had to work through boards, equal authority, negotiated responsibilities and professional executives. The institution had become too large to operate as an extension of one man.
This is where the inheritance story became more interesting.
Leonardo did not leave his heirs direct control of EssilorLuxottica. He left them ownership in Delfin. Delfin would remain the long-term shareholder. Professional managers would run the businesses. The family would sit above the operating companies rather than occupy every executive seat within them.
This was not the structure Leonardo had used to build Luxottica. It looked more like the structure he had learned to live within near the end: family ownership, professional management, shared governance and no single heir in control.
Leonardo did not name one child as his replacement. He designed a system that would require the owners to work together.
Then he was gone.
For a while, the public story remained calm. EssilorLuxottica continued to grow under Francesco Milleri. Its market value later passed €100 billion as it expanded further into medical technology and smart eyewear through its partnership with Meta. The operating company appeared to have achieved the continuity Leonardo wanted.
Inside Delfin, the picture was more complicated.
The eight equal stakes did not create equal objectives. Some heirs wanted distributions. Some wanted liquidity. Some wanted to preserve the holding company intact. Others wanted more influence over its future.
The company’s bylaws required broad shareholder support for important decisions. Dividend policy required six of eight shareholders. Other decisions required at least five. Certain transfers needed the consent of the other owners.
The structure protected Delfin from being redirected by one person. It also made it difficult to move when the owners disagreed.
Luca and Paola Del Vecchio sought to transfer their stakes into another vehicle so they could eventually sell them. They did not receive the unanimous support required and turned to the Luxembourg courts.
Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio later offered to buy both stakes. The proposed €10 billion transaction would take him from 12.5 per cent to 37.5 per cent and make him the largest individual shareholder in Delfin. He argued that the deal could resolve years of disputes, restart distributions and protect the family’s position in EssilorLuxottica.
He was also fighting a separate battle.
Leonardo Maria challenged his mother’s transfer of part of her interest to Rocco Basilico. He said his father intended for that stake to pass to Rocco only after Nicoletta’s death and argued that keeping the remaining interest within Leonardo’s direct family line would help preserve Delfin’s stability.
Rocco saw the damage differently. In a letter reported by the Financial Times, he said the family’s relationships had deteriorated and described the conflict as destructive. He proposed giving shareholders another route to sell their interests back to Delfin.
By June 2026, Leonardo Maria’s buyout had run into financing problems. Banks wanted stronger guarantees. Delfin’s board rejected a request to support the financing. The value of the proposed collateral had fallen with EssilorLuxottica’s share price. Meanwhile, more shareholders were exploring possible exits.
The original arrangement was beginning to bend, not necessarily because it had been poorly designed, but because the people inside it wanted different things.
This is where it becomes tempting to declare Leonardo’s plan a failure. Eight equal owners created gridlock. One son was trying to buy out two siblings. Another branch was proposing redemptions. Family members were meeting in court.
That looks like failure.
But the business Leonardo built was not failing. EssilorLuxottica had become larger and more valuable. Professional management remained in place. No single disagreement among the heirs could easily destabilize the operating company or force a sale of its most important asset.
That looks like success.
Both can be true.
The structure may have protected the institution while placing pressure on the family. It may have preserved shared ownership while making individual freedom harder. It may have prevented one heir from taking control while leaving several others feeling trapped.
Every decision protected something. Every decision created another problem.
I began with the idea that Leonardo had divided his wealth equally because he wanted to be fair. Now I am not sure equality was the point.
Perhaps he was trying to prevent exclusion. No child would be chosen over another. His wife would be protected. A stepson who had become part of his family and business life would have a place. Professional managers could continue operating the companies. No heir could dismantle the system alone.
That is one definition of fairness. It is not the only one.
Luca and Paola might define fairness as the ability to leave an investment they no longer wish to own. Leonardo Maria might define it as giving leadership to the family member most committed to preserving Delfin. Rocco might define it as respecting the ownership he received while creating a structure that no longer damages the relationships around it. The professional managers might define fairness as protecting an institution employing hundreds of thousands of people from private family disputes.
Each position can sound reasonable from the chair in which the person is sitting. That may be why succession becomes so difficult.
Founders spend their lives making decisions from one chair. Then they are asked to design a system for people who will sit in several.
Leonardo knew how to build a company around his own conviction. His final task was different. He had to design one that could survive the convictions of everyone who came after him.
The question was no longer who should receive what. It was which problems the structure should be built to withstand: disagreement, a weak successor, a forced sale, family exclusion, an heir who wants out or an heir who wants control.
Leonardo appears to have protected against some of those risks. Others became more visible after he was gone. There may be no structure that solves all of them.
That is what changed my mind about this story.
I began by asking whether equal ownership was fair. It was the wrong question. The more useful question is what Leonardo believed fairness needed to protect.
Those two questions sound similar. They lead to very different conversations.
As readers, perhaps we should not be asking whether Leonardo’s plan prevented conflict. It did not. The more useful question is: What was he trying to protect?
A founder can divide a company equally and still leave the next generation with unequal responsibilities, unequal interests and unequal relationships with the business. Equal ownership did not bring agreement to Leonardo’s family, but perhaps agreement was never what the structure was designed to preserve.
A founder can choose one successor and create clarity while also creating resentment. A founder can protect the company and strain the family, or protect the family and weaken the company.
The percentages come last.
Long before ownership is divided, a family has to decide what it is trying to preserve, what it is prepared to sacrifice and which tensions the next generation should be equipped to carry.
Leonardo Del Vecchio could leave his heirs a structure. He could not leave them agreement. No founder can.
Perhaps that is the hardest decision a founder makes: not how to divide what they built, but what they are willing to leave unresolved.
Continue the story
Primary Sources
EssilorLuxottica Annual Reports and Governance Documents
Explore the company’s ownership structure, governance model, and the relationship between family ownership and professional management following Leonardo Del Vecchio’s passing.
Reuters
Reporting on the Del Vecchio family dispute, the attempted buyout by one heir, and the continuing governance of Delfin, the family’s holding company.
Financial Times
Coverage of succession planning, family governance, and how Europe’s largest family-controlled businesses navigate generational transitions.
The Economist
Analysis of founder-led businesses, family capitalism, and why governance often determines whether multigenerational enterprises endure.
Family Enterprise Canada and Family Enterprise Foundation
Research on governance, stewardship, ownership transitions, and the evolving responsibilities of family shareholders across generations.
What Changed Our Thinking
We began this investigation by asking whether Leonardo Del Vecchio made the right decision when he divided ownership equally among eight heirs. The evidence led us somewhere more interesting.
The real question was not how ownership had been divided, but what Leonardo was trying to protect. As we examined Delfin’s governance structure, another pattern emerged. Equal ownership was only one part of the design. Operational leadership remained with experienced professionals, ownership remained with the family, and governance connected the two.
By the end of the investigation, we were no longer evaluating whether the succession plan was fair. We were trying to understand how a founder designs a system capable of surviving uncertainty long after they are gone.
Questions That Remain
What should a founder preserve: equality, harmony or adaptability?
Can governance succeed where certainty cannot?
When equal owners want different futures, what should hold the enterprise together?
What decisions should belong to a founder, and which should be left to future generations?
Is succession ultimately about transferring wealth, or transferring the ability to make good decisions?
What institutions can families build today that remain resilient when tomorrow becomes uncertain?
