There’s an elite group at the top of Forbes’ billionaires list: the $100 billion club. It’s been an all male fraternity of billionaires worth $100 billion or more. On Wednesday, the gender balance changed ever so slightly. Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the vice chair of French cosmetics giant L’Oréal, is now worth $100.1 billion, per Forbes’ calculations, making her the first woman worth $100 billion or more.
Bettencourt Meyers, who is 70, briefly passed the $100 billion mark on May 15 but then dropped back down. On Wednesday, L’Oréal Group shares rose 0.8% to 455.6 Euros, putting her net worth at $100.1 billion, per Forbes Real Time Billionaires ranking. Most of her fortune is tied up in a nearly 35% stake in the beauty giant that she owns with her husband and two sons; she has served on the board since 1997.
Back in April, L’Oréal’s stock soared after it beat first-quarter sales expectations; its share price jumped more than 5% in one day, which put Bettencourt Meyers within spitting distance of the centibillionaire mark. The company pulled in $44 billion (41 billion Euros) in 2023 revenues from its more than three dozen brands, including Maybelline, Kiehl’s and Lancôme. Its success is partially attributed to its strategic acquisitions, such as its purchase of Australian beauty brand Aesop last summer in a deal that valued the brand at $2.5 billion – adding to its luxe beauty category, which already includes brands like Prada Beauty and Yves Saint Laurent.
Bettencourt Meyers – granddaughter of L’Oréal founder Eugène Schueller, the man behind the invention of safe hair dye – made her first appearance on Forbes’ ranking of the world’s wealthiest in 2018, following the death of her socialite mother and leading L’Oréal shareholder, Liliane Bettencourt, in 2017. Both of Bettencourt Meyers’ sons, Jean-Victor Meyers and Nicolas Meyers, also serve on the L’Oréal board. Her fortune has increased by nearly $58 billion since her 2018 debut on Forbes’ list.
Despite the prominent milestone and her longstanding position as the richest woman in the world, the reclusive heiress prefers to keep a low profile. She shuns the spotlight she was born into and opts instead to write and play piano in her Paris home.
Forbes
