L’Oréal major shareholder Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (70) has been defending her title as the richest woman in the world for years. She also recently became the first woman in the world to increase her personal wealth to $100 billion.
After the cosmetics company’s shares climbed to a record high in the final week of 2023, the L’Oréal heiress’ fortune jumped to $100.1 billion, according to the agency Bloomberg
reported. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, she is richer than any other woman on the planet. On the list of the richest people in the world, on whichElon Musk(52; Tesla, Twitter) andBernard Arnault(74;LVMH) alternate in first place, Bettencourt Meyers is in 12th place.
Bettencourt Meyers and her family hold almost 35 percent of the cosmetics company, which is currently worth 241 billion euros ($268 billion). This makes them the largest individual shareholders in L’Oréal. Bettencourt Meyers is deputy head of the board of directors, her sons Jean-Victor Meyers (37) and Nicolas Meyers (35) also sit on the board. The company has been run by non-family managers for decades.
Her grandfather Eugène Schueller founded L’Oréal in 1909 and built a global beauty empire from the company that initially specialized in hair dyes. Schueller was a chemist and had developed a previously unknown hair color formula from non-toxic ingredients in his backyard apartment in Paris. Over the years, the company expanded its product portfolio to include various beauty products and is still the world’s largest cosmetics company with sales of $38 million.
Long after her grandfather’s death, Bettencourt Meyers made public his closeness to the National Socialists in the 1930s. She is married to the grandson of a rabbi who was murdered in Auschwitz and converted to Judaism after her marriage. She has written two books – a five-volume study of the Bible and a genealogy of the Greek gods.
Dispute over allegedly wasted millions
She became the richest woman in the world in 2017 after the death of her mother Liliane Bettencourt, with whom she is said to have had a difficult relationship. Bettencourt suffered from senile dementia. Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers was her only child.
A legal dispute between mother and daughter had developed from a family feud into a political scandal over the 80s. France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy (68) was accused of accepting illegal donations from Liliane Bettencourt and of taking advantage of Bettencourt’s poor health. The case is closed.
The streaming service Netflix published a three-part documentary “The Bettencourt Affair: Scandal surrounding the richest woman in the world” in November, in which secret recordings of a butler also play a role.
Above all, Bettencourt Meyers doubted that the elderly mother was suitable to manage the family’s assets. After a legal dispute mother and daughter agreed 2010 with the result that Liliane Bettencourt was incapacitated and her grandson Jean Victor Meyers was appointed as legal guardian.
France’s growing dominance of luxury retail has spawned several other ultra-rich families in recent years. These include the Arnaults with the luxury goods group LVMH (Louis Vuitton, TAG Heuer, Christian Dior, etc.) or the clan behind them Luxury brand Hermès, which has amassed the largest family fortune in Europe, as well as the Wertheimer brothers, who own Chanel.