(Bloomberg) -- Leonardo Del Vecchio, the Italian billionaire eyewear entrepreneur who died in June, left hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares to his designated successor, Francesco Milleri.

Del Vecchio’s will grants about 2.15 million EssilorLuxottica SA shares for Milleri, worth about 340 million euros ($350 million) at current prices. The donation is equal to about 0.5% of the eyewear giant’s stock.

The news was first reported by the Ansa news agency and confirmed by an EssilorLuxottica spokesman.

Milleri has been EssilorLuxottica’s chief executive officer since 2020 and was named its chairman in June. Del Vecchio leaned on his right-hand man to help engineer the 2018 deal to combine Ray-Ban maker Luxottica -- the firm he founded -- with French lens maker Essilor.

Now, Milleri is charged with carrying out his mentor’s dream of catapulting EssilorLuxottica into the exclusive club of companies valued at more than 100 billion euros. The group currently has a market value of about 70 billion euros.

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Author: Daniele Lepido