Luxottica’s deus ex machina Her
name is Nicoletta Zampillo , second (and fourth) wife of Leonardo Del Vecchio: Milanese, married in 1997 and remarried in September 2010, a true maneuverer – according to the most mischievous financial news reports, usually always buttoned up – of the Agordo eyewear company. Yesterday, 13 October, the stock lost more than 9% on the stock market after the farewell of the last CEO, Enrico Cavatorta, appointed just a month ago after 15 years alongside Del Vecchio in the management of the company in place of Andrea War , after weeks of turmoil. MANEUVERER
But the great woman behind the great man of Luxottica Cavatorta didn’t like it. Il Sole 24 orehe defines it as gossip, but it seems that behind this renunciation there is Zampillo, who “asked – writes the newspaper – to join Delfin, the safe that owns 61% of Luxottica. This could have been what caused Cavatorta to come out after a four-hour meeting with the patron Del Vecchio. It should also be said that Zampillo is considered close to Francesco Milleri , a possible new councilor. And this would close the circle ”. THE ROLE OF THE CHILDREN In fact, the strategy of Zampillo is to have the legitimate, the share of the company that would be inherited by it, anticipated. “Through Delfin – continues the Sun– the industrialist controls 61.35% of his own creation and within the holding company the assets are divided among the children, each of whom owns a package of 16.38%. For now the president holds the reins of everything with the direct ownership of 1.72% of the company and the usufruct on the shares assigned to the children ”. The balance to be found between the heirs, however – adds the economic newspaper – “is difficult, given that the wife, mother only of Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, who in the event of succession would be entitled to 1/3 of her husband’s assets, asked to join Delfin with a 25% share, making it necessary to step back for all the children (Claudio, the only one to sit on the board of directors of the listed company), Marisa and Paola born from their first marriage, Leonardo Maria, son of Zampillo and the children of the third union, Luca and Clemente) “. Nicoletta Zampillo would have the idea of placing her twenty-year-old son Leonardo Maria on the board, perhaps in place of Claudio, the 57-year-old eldest son of the patron. In fact, disavowing the work of her husband that she has always preferred to keep her children out of management and rely on professional managers.VILLA MONDADORI Mrs. Zampillo knows how to get things from her husband-ex-husband. After her first divorce, in 2000, Nicoletta was assigned villa Mondadori, built in the 1920s, two thousand square meters between via XX Settembre and via Tamburini in Milan. As Corriere recalls, the villa, the Milanese residence of the Del Vecchio family, was then sold in 2008 for 24 million euros. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF PONS
However, between Zampillo and Del Vecchio it was not love at first sight. Although the acquaintance between the two was long-standing, Zampillo’s father was one of the first representatives of Luxottica eyewear for Milan and Lombardy, Nicoletta marries Paolo Basilico, “enfant prodige of Milanese finance, first in Mediobanca and at Italian branch of Giubergia Warburg and then founder of the first Italian hedge funds, under the Kairos brand ”, Giovanni Pons tells in Repubblica .
The relationship with Del Vecchio – Pons reconstructs – instead precipitates in the 2000s when the patron falls in love with the investor relator who works in Luxottica, Sabrina Grossi : “The relationship is so strong – writes Repubblica– that Del Vecchio interrupts his marriage with Zampillo, liquidates her and throws himself headlong into the new relationship that will lead to the birth of two more children, Luca and Clemente, who are added to the three from his first marriage, Claudio, Paola and Marisa, and to Leonardo Maria ”, had by Zampillo in the mid-nineties. THE CIRCE THAT WIRES THE LINES OF A 7 BILLION GROUP
“With a turnover of 7 billion and foreign operations on the most disparate markets (about 60% of Luxottica’s revenues are in dollars) – writes Repubblica– Weaving the financial ranks of the Luxottica group is no small business. The colors of the future of the Agordo-based company are tinged with the colors of “family” management, with a once again leading operational role for Leonardo Del Vecchio “. Too bad that the patron, now in his eighties, is not the real architect of this design. Already in July the sheethe wrote that “Del Vecchio, born in 1935, six children from three different women, had tried in 2010 to create a family trust, dividing the shares of his Delfin equally. This happened before getting married with his second partner, Nicoletta Zampillo… And so Del Vecchio suspended the trial without deciding. The son Claudio who launched the company in the United States lives in New York where he bought and relaunched Brooks Brothers. And he does not intend to return to Italy. Del Vecchio chose an external manager to entrust his eyewear giant to and immediately excluded his children from management, despite several requests from trusted consultants “. SPILL’S WORDS
“No dynasty or interference with the company”, she says today to the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. “I am the wife of Leonardo Del Vecchio and mother of a family – Zampillo is keen to specify -. In the 22 years of relationship with my husband I have limited myself to having this role “.
No pressing in the profession, therefore: “In this Leonardo is very good, exceptional, and certainly does not need me”, adds Zampillo to the newspaper directed by Roberto Napoletano, ensuring that he does not put his mouth on the company’s strategies.
And on the reorganization of the company shares, which according to sources of the Sun would be in the running following a request from women of 25% of them, he replies: “I did not ask for anything. If there is a law that decides something, it is a law, not Del Vecchio’s wife ”.
