Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, an heir to EssilorLuxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio, has secured an up to €22 billion financing package from Citi, a person close to him told Reuters on Monday. The money is to buy out the other shareholders in Delfin, the family holding company that owns about a third of the eyewear group. EssilorLuxottica makes the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses with Meta.
The move follows a €30 billion offer for Delfin from Czech defence billionaire Michal Strnad, reported by Reuters on 29 October. Bloomberg reported on Monday that Del Vecchio is offering €3.7 billion to each of the other heirs, citing Corriere della Sera. By our arithmetic, €3.7 billion for a 12.5% stake values all of Delfin at €29.6 billion, close to Strnad’s offer.
Business Pill · On-Device AI
A short explainer on on-device AI: running a model on the device you carry or wear. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about Delfin, EssilorLuxottica or this ownership dispute.
The key insight: By our arithmetic, the €3.7 billion per-heir price reported by Corriere della Sera values all of Delfin at €29.6 billion, close to Michal Strnad’s €30 billion offer, while Bloomberg puts Delfin’s listed stakes at about €45 billion.
Del Vecchio set out his plan in a letter published on Monday in his QN newspaper. “I’ve proposed the total and immediate acquisition of the stakes or other forms of acquisitions more diluted over time,” he wrote, according to Bloomberg. The letter gave no financial details.
Bloomberg reported that he said he had secured backing from an international institution he did not name, and that he will be ready to present the project to the seven other shareholders of Delfin on 7 November. Citi declined to comment, according to both Reuters and Bloomberg.
The aim is to acquire five or six of the shareholdings in Delfin, the person close to Del Vecchio told Reuters. By our arithmetic, five or six stakes at €3.7 billion each would cost €18.5 billion to €22.2 billion, roughly the size of the Citi package. Bloomberg reported that the vehicle buying the stakes would have strengthened governance rules and a binding statute.
What Was Posted on X
Ray-Ban heir Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is seeking to take control of his family’s holdings in EssilorLuxottica, the eyewear giant behind Ray-Ban $META smart glasses.
He has proposed buying out the other heirs’ stakes in Delfin, the family investment company that owns roughly a third of EssilorLuxottica.
The proposal follows a โฌ31B takeover bid from Czech defense billionaire Michal Strnad, per Bloomberg.
Del Vecchio says he has secured financing, with Italian media reporting a โฌ22B loan from Citigroup and an offer of roughly โฌ3.7B to each of the other heirs.
Strnad’s competing bid values Delfin at a 30% discount to its net asset value.
The proposed family buyout would prevent outside control of the investment empire following years of disputes among the heirs.
Del Vecchio plans to present his proposal on November 7.
Wall St Engine summarised the Bloomberg report on X: Del Vecchio proposed buying out the other heirs’ stakes in Delfin after Michal Strnad’s bid, with Italian media reporting a EUR22 billion Citigroup loan and an offer of roughly EUR3.7 billion to each heir. This piece credits both figures to Corriere della Sera, as Bloomberg did; Reuters, citing a person close to Del Vecchio, reported financing of up to EUR22 billion from Citi.
Three values for Delfin: about EUR45 billion for its publicly disclosed listed stakes (Bloomberg, as of 30 October), Michal Strnad’s EUR30 billion offer (Reuters) and EUR29.6 billion implied by the reported EUR3.7 billion per 12.5% stake (our arithmetic).
The Czech Offer
Strnad, 34, heads the family’s defence company Czechoslovak Group, Reuters reported. His offer is outlined in a letter dated 20 October that Italian newspaper Il Domani published. “I am looking for long-term investment opportunities in companies operating in, or investing in, businesses positioned at the top of their value chain,” Strnad wrote, according to the newspaper.
Bloomberg reported that Strnad offered to buy Delfin at a 30% discount to its net asset value and seeks at least 62.5% of the company. Delfin’s publicly disclosed stakes in listed companies were valued at about €45 billion as of Friday, according to Bloomberg. Reuters put the combined market value of its holdings at €43 billion on 29 October.
Delfin’s ownership is divided equally among the founder’s eight heirs, and a sale would require a virtually unanimous decision from them, Reuters reported. Del Vecchio responded to the offer in a statement: “The work of a lifetime by my father must remain part of Italy’s heritage”.
Why It Matters for Meta’s Glasses
Delfin is the top investor in the company that makes Meta’s AI glasses. EssilorLuxottica said it sold over 7 million AI glasses in 2025, up from the 2 million it sold in 2023 and 2024 combined, CNBC reported in February. Its Meta eyewear accounted for 81.3% of global AI-glasses shipments in the first half of this year, according to research group Omdia, as cited by Reuters.
Meta holds at least a 3% stake in EssilorLuxottica, a board director at the company said in December 2025, Reuters reported. Francesco Milleri chairs Delfin and is chairman and chief executive of EssilorLuxottica, and Del Vecchio has turned increasingly critical of him, according to Bloomberg.
As we read the reports, both plans price Delfin well below the market value of what it owns: Bloomberg says Strnad offered a 30% discount to net asset value, and the reported per-heir price works out close to his figure.
As we read it, the fight is over who controls the largest shareholder of the company that makes Meta’s AI glasses, at a time when EssilorLuxottica says it sold over 7 million of them in 2025 and Meta holds at least a 3% stake, according to a board director.
Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, in a letter published in QN, as reported by Bloomberg
“I’ve proposed the total and immediate acquisition of the stakes or other forms of acquisitions more diluted over time”
Three Implications
FOR METAMeta works closely with EssilorLuxottica on the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and holds at least a 3% stake, a board director said in December 2025; the sources we read carry no comment from Meta on the dispute over Delfin.
FOR DELFIN’S HEIRS Delfin is owned equally by eight heirs, and Reuters reports that a sale would require a virtually unanimous decision from them; Del Vecchio says he will be ready to present his plan on 7 November.
FOR INVESTORS IN ESSILORLUXOTTICA Delfin holds about a third of EssilorLuxottica, and Bloomberg reports that Del Vecchio has turned increasingly critical of Francesco Milleri, who chairs both Delfin and EssilorLuxottica.
On the structure of the AI economy, the framework says: “This entire ecosystem has been shaped by constraints, bottlenecks, chokepoints, and scarcity at every layer.”
As we read it, the device people wear is one of those layers, and the Delfin dispute is about ownership of the largest shareholder of the company that makes Meta’s glasses. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss Delfin or EssilorLuxottica.
Del Vecchio’s letter disclosed no financial details. The €22 billion figure comes from a person close to him and from Corriere della Sera, and the €3.7 billion per-heir price from Corriere della Sera as reported by Bloomberg. The sources we read carry no response from the other heirs, and no comment from EssilorLuxottica or Meta on the dispute over Delfin.
Whether Strnad’s offer or the family buyout can win the heirs’ support is not known. Bloomberg reported that an earlier attempt by Del Vecchio to buy stakes from two siblings for €10 billion hit a wall after lenders asked for guarantees over Delfin’s investments, which the board denied.
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An heir to EssilorLuxottica’s founder has secured up to €22 billion in financing from Citi to buy out his relatives in Delfin, according to a person close to him, the holding company behind about a third of Meta’s glasses partner, days after a €30 billion offer from Michal Strnad. By our arithmetic, his reported €3.7 billion per-heir price values Delfin at €29.6 billion, close to the Czech offer. He says he will be ready to present the plan to the other Delfin shareholders on 7 November.
A note on sourcing. This piece relies on Bloomberg’s 2 November report as syndicated by The Edge Malaysia, Reuters reports of 29 October and 2 November, and earlier Reuters and CNBC reports on EssilorLuxottica’s smart glasses and Meta’s stake. The €22 billion and €3.7 billion figures are as reported, citing a person close to Del Vecchio and Corriere della Sera; Del Vecchio’s letter gave no financial details. The implied valuations are our arithmetic. Wall St Engine’s post on X flagged the story.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
