Ray-Ban heir drops bid for critical Italian daily after due diligence request rejected

ROME, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, an heir to the late founder of Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, said on Thursday he did not currently intend to launch a bid for Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano, after failing to obtain the information needed for a full assessment of the company.

• The 31-year-old already has significant media holdings in Italy through his indebted holding company LMDV, among which a 30% stake in the Il Giornale daily, formerly owned by the Berlusconi family

• LMDV said it had taken note of SEIF's board decision to reject its request for a confirmatory due diligence, as well as of the founding shareholders' intention not to tender their shares to the proposed offer

• The founders' refusal makes it impossible to reach the 82.9% voting-capital threshold that LMDV Media had set as a condition for the bid to become effective, it said

• On October 25, LMDV Media indicated a price of 0.286 euros per SEIF share for the potential tender offer, valuing the deal at around 7.15 million euros ($7.97 million).

($1 = 0.8971 euros)

(Reporting by Francesca Piscioneri, editing by Gianluca Semeraro)