Leonardo Del Vecchio, owner of Ray-Ban and second richest person in Italy, has died

Leonardo del Vecchio, founder of Luxottica and CEO of EssilorLuxottica, the largest production and distribution company in the world of optics, and the second richest person in Italy, passed away today at the age of 87 in Milan leaving behind a huge empire. Under his leadership it acquired Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ban and Oakley.

Only behind Giovanni Ferrero, Del Vecchio built a real world empire starting from a small factory of glasses frames in Belluno, in the north of Italy, and currently leaves an estate valued at around 27,000 million euros, according to Forbes magazine.

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Of Old His almost cinematographic life has always been highlighted because he had a hard childhood since he grew up in the Martinitt orphanage, where his parents emigrated from Apulia admitted him to be able to work.

The recent authorized biography written by Tommaso Ebhardt revolves around the extraordinary creative force of a “self-made” man and that in the seven years he spent in the orphanage formed him “a character of steel and he learns that taste for precision that will make his fortune as an entrepreneur”.

At the age of 14 he found a job at Johnson and in the afternoon he studied and at the age of 26 he moved to Agordo, in the province of Bellunowhere the mountain community had offered land to those who wanted to create a company in the area and Luxottica’s adventure began there, as a factory for eyeglass frames.

From 1969 he became the sole owner of the companySince then, the company has continued to grow internationally through acquisitions and in 1981 he made his first international leap by buying the American brand Avantgarde.

Another important moment in the trajectory of Luxottica it was in 1990, with the listing of the company on the New York Stock Exchange and ten years later it was floated on the Milan Stock Exchange.

On July 27, 2004, Old decides to leave his position as executive director to Andrea Guerra but they tell how during a meeting in 2014 Del Vecchio handed him a piece of paper in which he told him that the company belonged to “the Del Vechio family” and it took back power.

“It was Del Vecchio who had the last word in all the decisions of the company, not only in the strategic ones. After all, he had always been like that, after all that was the secret of his success”, read in his biography.

luxotica continued its expansion by acquiring another optical giant, Oakleybased in California and specializing in the production of sports lenses and On October 1, 2018, Luxottica merges with the French company Essilor, giving life to the new colossus, EssilorLuxotticain an operation worth 50,000 million and that has some 80,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores.

Del Vecchio was also a 6.84% shareholder in Mediobanca and 4.87% in Assicurazioni Generali.

His six children, the fruit of three marriages, will be the heirs to the empire.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.