Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune and Europe’s richest woman, will retire from her role on the company’s board and give her vice chairmanship to her son, Jean-Victor Meyers.
Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers poses on Aug. 28, 2011 in the French central city of Chanceau-pres-Loches.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Takeaways
- Bettencourt Meyers will be replaced on the board by Alexandre Benais, deputy CEO of Téthys Invest, the family’s holding company and the largest shareholder of L’Oréal (Téthys is chaired by Bettencourt Meyers).
- The company announced the changes Thursday in reporting its fourth quarter earnings—sales were slightly lower than expected—and said they would go into effect after a shareholder vote in April.
- The Bettencourt Meyers family owns a stake of about 35% in L’Oréal.
Key Background
Bettencourt Meyers, 71, has been on the board of directors for L’Oréal since 1997 and has been vice chairwoman since 2020. She has two sons, Jean-Victor and Nicolas Meyers, both of whom are also on the board of directors. Bettencourt Meyers has written two books—a five-volume study of the Bible called “A Look at the Bible” and a genealogy of the Greek gods. She is the president of her family’s philanthropic foundation, which encourages French progress in the sciences and arts.
Bettencourt Meyers is the granddaughter of the founder of the L’Oréal cosmetics company and became its reigning heiress in 2017, when her mother Liliane Bettencourt, then the world’s richest woman, died at age 94.
Bettencourt Meyers’ inheritance was the subject of a sensational trial in France, in which eight people were found guilty of exploiting her mother, including photographer Francois-Marie Banier, who was given gifts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including artworks by Picasso and Matisse. Liliane Bettencourt at one point named Banier her heir, but it was later revealed she was exploited while suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and the decision was revoked.
Surprising Fact
L’Oréal and the Bettencourt Meyers family jointly agreed to donate $226 million to repair Notre Dame Cathedral following the April 2019 fire. It reopened in December.
Forbes Valuation
Bettencourt Meyers was the 20th-wealthiest person in the world as of Thursday with an estimated net worth of $76.1 billion. She is the second-richest woman in the world behind Alice Walton, whose family founded Walmart, who was ranked No. 15 on Thursday with a $110.9 billion net worth.
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