Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, a businesswoman and heiress from L’Oreal, is the first woman to have amassed a $100 billion fortune, according to media sources on Friday.
The Frenchwoman Bettencourt Meyers broke through the threshold on Thursday, thanks to an increase in the share price of the cosmetics empire her mother, who was also the richest woman in the world until her death in 2017, inherited.
According to The Guardian, Eugene Schueller, Bettencourt Meyers’ grandfather, established L’Oreal in 1909 to produce and sell a hair color he had created.
Founded in the Hauts-de-Seine region’s Clichy neighborhood in northwest Paris, it has expanded into a global conglomerate valued at €241 billion (£209 billion) on the Paris stock exchange.
With a nearly 35 percent stake, the renownedly private Bettencourt Meyers, 70, and her family continue to be the largest shareholders. This has allowed her wealth to soar over $100 billion this year, up $28.6 billion from last year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Even though the cost of living problem was affecting nations all over the world, Bettencourt Meyers was by no means the only billionaire to see their riches soar in the year that it ended.
Out of the 50 wealthiest people in the world, 12 had their fortunes decline in 2023, while the others saw their holdings increase without taking inflation into account.
