Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the heiress of L’Oreal, is the first woman to surpass a €90 billion fortune, according to Bloomberg.
ADVERTISEMENTFrancoise Bettencourt Meyers, the L’Oreal inheritor and richest woman in the world, has become the first woman to possess a wealth of over €90 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
She was ranked as the 12th world’s richest person, surpassing Mukesh Ambani and trailing behind Carlos Slim, who recently became the first person from Latin America to surpass the €90 billion mark.
Bettencourt Meyers reached this milestone as L’Oréal SA, the cosmetics empire her grandfather started, saw its stocks hit a record high, rising by 35% in 2023.
The beauty market is experiencing a robust recovery since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, expected to reach approximately €524 billion by 2027, with a projected annual growth of 6%.
L’Oréal reported in 2022 that Bettencourt Meyers and her family possessed over 34% of the company’s stock. Sales in that same year surpassed €38 billion, according to the world’s largest cosmetics company.
The French beauty company earlier this year acquired Australian brand Aesop in a deal worth €2.3 billion, the largest brand purchase ever made by L’Oreal.
Its previous highest acquisition was the €1.5 billion buyout of YSL Beauté in 2008, according to Dealogic data.
L’Oréal owns a broad range of brands, from Giorgio Armani to Maybelline and Yves Saint Laurent.
Despite this new record of riches, Bettencourt Meyers' fortune is considerably less than that of Bernard Arnault, who leads LVMH, the largest maker of luxury goods globally.
He is the second-richest person worldwide, with a fortune of €162 billion.
