Liliane Bettencourt, the only child of Eugene Schueller, the founder of L’Oréal, snagged the title of world’s richest woman several times.
She was still the top female billionaire in the world and the richest woman in France when she died in 2017 with a net worth of US$44.9 billion.
She, too, had only one child – Francoise Bettencourt Meyers – who has again been named the richest woman in the world in 2020 by BCG, the world’s second largest consulting firm.
Her ranking also underlines how the world’s biggest beauty company continues to expand. The 67-year old’s net worth far exceeds that of her late mother’s at US$73.4 billion.
Bettencourt Meyers is a L’Oréal board member and is also the president of the family’s philanthropic foundation.
Other female plutocrats who made the top 10 list in descending order are:
2) Julia Flescher Koch (US$61.1 billion) of Koch Industries, the US petrol and chemical giant
3) Alice Walton (US$57.6 billion) of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer
4) MacKenzie Scott (US$53.5 billion), ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
5) Jacqueline Mars (US$41.1 billion) of Mars Inc, the US confectionery titan
6) Yang Huiyan (US$28.6 billion), the Chinese real estate developer and richest woman in Asia
7) Gina Rinehart (US$27.6 Billion), the mining mogul and richest person in Australia
8) Abigail Johnson (US$25.3 billion), CEO of Fidelity Investments, one of the largest asset managers in the world
9) Iris Fontbona (US$23.6 billion), the Chilean mining and beverage magnate
10) Suzanne Klatten (US$22.9 billion), the BMW auto heiress and businesswoman
L’Oréal has also just announced it will use 95 per cent sustainable ingredients across all of its brands by 2030. The multinational will harness Green Sciences to meet its target.
The goal is ambitious as only 34 per cent of ingredients in L’Oréal’s stable of products are natural or of natural origin.
But 80 per cent of the multinational’s are biodegradable and 59 per cent are renewable.