Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, a 31-year-old heir to the $88 billion fortune behind eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, has escalated his public feud with chief executive Francesco Milleri, blaming him for a collapse in the company's share price just as strong quarterly results strengthen Milleri's hand ahead of his reappointment next year.
In a podcast interview with Italian rapper Fedez that drew comparisons with the TV drama Succession, Leonardo Maria said of his father: "My father gave us everything, but not love." He boasted of sleeping with more than 2000 women, owning two yachts and joked that he had debts of around €1 billion ($1.6 billion). He then turned on Milleri: "When he was delivering results, I was his biggest supporter." He criticised the company's lack of vision and said Milleri should be more concerned about the share-price slump. "The momentum from my father has run out," he said.
The attack follows his resignation in August as EssilorLuxottica's chief strategy officer and Ray-Ban chairman, in which he wrote: "This is not the Luxottica I grew up in." Milleri dismissed the public disagreements as "useless and unfounded" but told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that he was "deeply sorry" about Leonardo Maria's departure.
"I tried to help him in every possible way, including during the complex transaction involving the purchase of Delfin shares," Milleri said. "I understand his situation and hope it can be resolved soon. My affection for someone I have known since the day of his baptism cannot change, even during such an emotional period."
Milleri defended the company's performance under his leadership, which added €3 billion in sales this year. "Twelve years ago, it was mainly an eyewear company generating €7 billion in revenue and employing 85,000 people," he said. "Today, we are approaching €30 billion in revenue, with 220,000 employees and activities that span eyewear, vision care, medical technology and hearing solutions."
The feud centres on the fortune of Leonardo Maria's late father, Leonardo Del Vecchio, worth more than €55 billion ($88 billion) and held through Delfin, the Luxembourg holding company that controls roughly a third of EssilorLuxottica. Its ownership was divided into eight equal stakes among his six children, his widow Nicoletta Zampillo and her son from a previous marriage, Rocco Basilico. Strict rules governing major decisions have since left the heirs struggling to agree on dividends, ownership and Delfin's investments.
Earlier this year, Leonardo Maria tried to buy the stakes of two siblings, Luca and Paola, for around €10 billion, potentially tripling his holding to 37.5 per cent. Milleri supported the plan, but Romolo Bardin, Delfin's chief executive, opposed the holding company's involvement in financing it, and the proposal failed. Within months, Leonardo Maria had turned against Milleri, despite publicly backing him as recently as March.
The dispute is playing out as investors reassess the company's bet on AI-powered eyewear. Shares in EssilorLuxottica soared last year on excitement about its partnership with Meta, which is turning Ray-Ban sunglasses into devices that can take photographs, answer questions and translate conversations. Enthusiasm later faded on worries that smart glasses would be less profitable than conventional eyewear, and as Google and Samsung prepared competing products. At its lowest point, the sell-off wiped almost half the value from the shares.
"I did see shares as overvalued last year, for instance, on all this AI optimism," said Jelena Sokolova, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar. RBC Capital Markets analyst Piral Dadhania said the chief executive had been unfairly blamed. "The core business has performed remarkably well," he said. "There is always some governance drama."
Tuesday's trading update gave Milleri a powerful response to his critics. Sales rose 9 per cent to €7.49 billion in the three months to September, beating analysts' forecasts, while sales of smart glasses and other wearable devices jumped 20 per cent. Deutsche Bank warned this month that investors were still expecting too much from the company, questioning the prospects of AI glasses.
Alfredo De Massis, a professor of family business at IMD Business School and the University of Chieti-Pescara, said the contradiction reflects a classic struggle between heirs who want control and a professional manager appointed to exercise it.