L'Oreal Heiress Is First Woman EVER To Be Worth Over $100 Billion

  • 3 months ago
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the richest woman in the world for the last four years, now has a 12-figure fortune after L’Oréal’s stock reaches record highs.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/2024/06/05/meet-the-first-100-billion-woman/?sh=30ad394765f6

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Transcript
00:00Today on Forbes, meet the first $100 billion woman.
00:06There's an elite group at the top of Forbes' billionaires list.
00:09The $100 billion club.
00:12It has been an all-male fraternity of billionaires worth $100 billion or more.
00:18On Wednesday, the gender balance changed ever so slightly.
00:22Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, the vice chair of French cosmetics giant L'Oreal,
00:27is now worth $100.1 billion, per Forbes' calculations,
00:32making her the first woman worth $100 billion or more.
00:37Bettencourt-Meyers, who is 70 years old,
00:40briefly passed the $100 billion mark on May 15, but then dropped back down.
00:45On Wednesday, L'Oreal Group shares rose 0.8% to 455.6 euros,
00:52putting her net worth at $100.1 billion.
00:56This according to our Forbes real-time billionaires ranking.
01:00Most of her fortune is tied up in a nearly 35% stake in the beauty giant
01:04that she owns with her husband and two sons.
01:07She has served on the board since 1997.
01:11Back in April, L'Oreal's stock soared after it beat first-quarter sales expectations.
01:16Its share price jumped more than 5% in one day,
01:19which put Bettencourt-Meyers within spinning distance of the cent-a-billionaire mark.
01:24The company pulled in $44 billion, or 41 billion euros,
01:28in 2023 revenues from its more than three dozen brands,
01:32including Maybelline, Kiehl's, and Lancôme.
01:35Its success is partially attributed to its strategic acquisitions,
01:39such as its purchase of Australian beauty brand Aesop last summer
01:43in a deal that valued the brand at $2.5 billion,
01:47adding to its Luxe Beauty category,
01:49which already includes brands like Prada Beauty and Yves Saint Laurent.
01:54Bettencourt-Meyers, granddaughter of L'Oreal founder Eugène Schuller,
01:58the man behind the invention of safe hair dye,
02:01made her first appearance on Forbes' ranking of the world's wealthiest in 2018,
02:06following the death of her socialite mother and leading L'Oreal shareholder,
02:10Liliane Bettencourt, in 2017.
02:13Both of Bettencourt-Meyers' sons, Jean-Victor Meyers and Nicolas Meyers,
02:18also serve on the L'Oreal board.
02:21Bettencourt-Meyers' fortune has increased by nearly $58 billion
02:25since her 2018 debut on Forbes' list.
02:29Despite the prominent milestone
02:31and her long-standing position as the richest woman in the world,
02:34the reclusive heiress prefers to keep a low profile.
02:37She shuns the spotlight she was born into
02:40and opts instead to write and play piano in her Paris home.
02:44Still, she joins a rarified club as mega-wealth is soaring across the globe.
02:49There are now 16 centibillionaires, all worth $100 billion or more,
02:54up from a record 14 in April when Forbes published its annual billionaires ranking.
02:59The fortunes of these 16 are up nearly 40% from 2023,
03:04and their collective $2.2 trillion wealth
03:07accounts for 15% of the aggregate wealth of the 2,781 billionaires around the globe.
03:14A record nine people have joined the centibillionaire ranks this year,
03:18up from six last year and just one in 2020.
03:22Sitting atop the L'Oreal beauty empire,
03:25Bettencourt-Meyers is an outlier in a cohort
03:27made up mostly of tech tycoons like Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin.
03:32Other uber-rich who have made their fortunes in consumer products include
03:35fellow French fashion and cosmetics mogul Bernard Arnault, who is CEO of LVMH,
03:41and fast fashion pioneer Amancio Ortega, creator of the Zara brand.
03:47The massive $100 billion figure seemed far out of reach until 1999,
03:52when Bill Gates briefly passed the mark as Microsoft's stock price peaked
03:56before crashing and slashing his net worth nearly in half.
04:00It took nearly two decades before Jeff Bezos became the sole centibillionaire in 2017,
04:06followed by Bernard Arnault.
04:09Bill Gates and Elon Musk joined them in the $100 billion club in 2021.
04:15For full coverage, check out Samantha Kroonjay's piece on Forbes.com.
04:20This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.
04:30Forbes.com

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