The L’Oréal heiress and businesswoman, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, has become the first woman to amass a fortune of $100 billion, reports The Guardian.
Bettencourt Meyers, who is French, broke through the barrier on Thursday thanks to a rise in the share price of the cosmetics empire she inherited from her mother, who also held the title of the world’s richest woman until her death in 2017.
L’Oréal was founded in 1909 by Eugène Schueller, Bettencourt Meyers’s grandfather, to manufacture and market a hair dye he had invented.
Based in the north-western Parisian suburb of Clichy, it has grown into a globe-straddling colossus valued at €241bn (£209bn) on the Paris stock exchange.
Celebrities and supermodels such as Cindy Crawford, Beyoncé and Pénelope Cruz have helped advertise the brand, often using its slogan: “Because I’m worth it.”
The famously reclusive Bettencourt Meyers, 70, and her family, remain the largest shareholders with a stake of nearly 35%, the value of which has helped her wealth balloon by $28.6bn this year to reach $100bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.