Richest woman in Europe is retiring

The 71-year-old Bettencourt Meyers has been on the board of the company for 28 years that her grandfather, the chemist Eugène Schueller, founded in 1909 to produce a hair color that he had developed. She has been vice -president since 2020. Her son Jean-Victor Meyers, who is already on the board with his brother Nicolas, will take over that position in April.

The family has a interest of around 35 percent in L’Oréal. That participation is worth around 73 billion euros today. This makes Françoise Bettencourt, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the second richest woman in the world, after Alice Walton of the family behind the American supermarket giant Walmart.

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In December 2023, Bettencourt Meyers briefly became the first woman in the world to collect a 100 billion dollars fortune, which was a milestone for her and for the French fashion and cosmetics industry. But in the past 12 months, the share price lost about one fifth of its value due to a falling demand for cosmetics, especially in China.