Essilor

"The fact is that in the late spring of 2016, the French send an emissary to Milan to have a coffee with Leonardo. The two meet a stone's throw from the fashion district at one of the most elegant hotels in the city, which bears a hope for the future in its name: Palazzo Parigi. The boss doesn't believe in it much, he asks Francesco to take care of it, setting only one condition: he wants to count for his entire share. Instead, Milleri finds the right solution. The evolutionary leap is ready. The big day has arrived. It is a cold January night in 2017. The Financial Times breaks the news just after midnight. "Luxottica and Essilor have reached a 50 billion euro merger deal.""

""It's not worth continuing to argue. There's one year left and then it's over," he tells me at our first meeting in 2020. After three years of forced cohabitation regulated by equal governance agreements, in the spring of 2021 the shares finally count, Del Vecchio is able to assert the influence of his relative controlling stake and make one of his most important decisions, with the appointment of Francesco Milleri to lead the entire group. "We modernized Luxottica, we have to do the same with Essilor," he tells me confidently a year away from the expiration of the pact. "When I came back to lead the group in 2014, I had to fix many things, it took us six years to restructure the company. Now we will do the same with Essilor.""

"France, in the picturesque Marais district of Paris, the Société des Lunetiers was born in 1849 from the association of local opticians, the original nucleus of what would become Essilor in the following century."

"Therefore, it is Essilor that incorporates Luxottica, but it is the majority shareholder of the Italian company who becomes the majority shareholder of the group after the merger. In other words, Leonardo wins again."

"Guerra is the first to deal with the Parisians, but between 2012 and 2013, they don't come to an agreement. Andrea can't find a solution that allows Del Vecchio to become the major shareholder and the French to maintain their formal independence. Essilor, which during that period has a market capitalization lower than the Italians, does not want to appear as the younger sister in a deal."

"In recent years, Guerra has negotiated a potential merger with the French group Essilor, a world leader in lenses, without ever being able to complete the deal."

"GrandVision and, above all, Essilor are the last two pieces missing from his puzzle."

"Formally, it is Essilor that is buying Luxottica, the new company is based in France and is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange."

""Essilor and Delfin," the holding company of the Del Vecchio family, "create a global and integrated player in the eyewear industry with the combination of Essilor and Luxottica," reads the press release with an attached photograph of Hubert and Leonardo shaking hands, smiling and seemingly happy."

"Essilor, which has gained the lead thanks to its more than eight thousand patents on lenses, spends 200 million every year on research and development, making it difficult for new competitors to try to emulate its strategy."

"The giant is not considered a monopolist, despite Luxottica's vertical integration and the barriers to entry created by Essilor."