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Case file s1043 · Business dynasties · 2013
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2013
Ottavio Missoni (foto di Giuseppe Pino, 1990) (cropped): Lo stilista Ottavio Missoni ritratto nel suo studio di Sumirago, presso la sede della Missoni S.p.A.
Ottavio Missoni (foto di Giuseppe Pino, 1990) (cropped). Giuseppe Pino. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
9 May 2013 (Ottavio Missoni); Vittorio Missoni lost 4 January 2013
Place
Los Roques, Venezuela; Sumirago, Italy
Field
knitwear (Missoni) · Business and finance on the timeline
Legal tradition
Italian company and succession law · Civil law
Historical event
Italian family fashion houses selling to funds and groups after 2010
Business dynastiesNowLatin AmericaEuropeItaly

Missoni's chief executive vanished in a plane off Venezuela, his father died before the wreck was found, and the family gave up the company

Ottavio and Rosita Missoni founded their knitwear company in 1953. Their eldest son, Vittorio, worked in the company with his siblings. On 4 January 2013 Vittorio, his wife Maurizia Castiglioni, two friends and two Venezuelan crew took off from Los Roques for Caracas in a small plane. It dropped off radar. At the end of January a piece of luggage washed up on Curaçao. Ottavio died on 9 May 2013, aged 92, at his home and company headquarters in Sumirago, without learning what had happened to his son. On 27 June 2013 the Venezuelan and Italian governments confirmed the plane had been found about 76 metres under the sea north of Los Roques. On 15 June 2018 the family sold 41.2 percent of Missoni to the fund FSI and kept 58.8 percent. Angela Missoni became chairman and Rosita honorary chairman. In March 2026 FSI became majority shareholder and the family gave up its shareholding. Katjes Quiet Luxury, owned by the Fassin-Bachmueller family, took about 25 percent. The Missoni family still heads the Ottavio and Rosita Missoni Foundation, which guards the brand's history.

What the law took from it

When the chosen successor dies, a family company often sells within one generation.

Sources
  1. thelocal.itPress
  2. Al JazeeraPress
  3. fondofsi.itPress
  4. au.fashionunited.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Missoni's chief executive vanished in a plane off Venezuela, his father died before the wreck was found, and the family gave up the company,” story s1043, https://www.celebrity.estate/missoni-2013, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Business dynastiesNowLatin AmericaEuropeCivil lawItaly