It takes money to make money. There is hardly a better example of this than the French billionaire Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.

In late December, she broke through the $100-billion threshold and became the first woman to ever amass so much wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In 2023, she added $28.6 billion (€26.1 billion) on top of the billions she already had.

Though she was down to $96.2 billion on January 4, 2024, Bettencourt Meyers is still by far the richest woman in the world and the 13th richest person overall, according to Bloomberg calculations. Forbes, which also compiles a list of billionaires, ranks her 15th. However you do the math, she is among the few women to make either list.  

How did Bettencourt Meyers become so wealthy?

Bettencourt Meyers, 70, is the granddaughter of Eugene Schueller, the founder of French cosmetics giant L'Oreal. Her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, was the wealthiest woman in the world until she died in 2017 at 94. She left her daughter a fortune of $40 billion, mainly in the form of a stake in L'Oreal.

Like her mother, Bettencourt Meyers is an only child, meaning all her mother's L'Oreal shares went to her. Now, she controls 34.7% of the company.

She is the third generation of the family to be involved in the company and is vice chair of L'Oreal's 16-member board of directors. Her two sons, part of the fourth generation, are also on the board. Bettencourt Meyers has received huge company dividend cash payouts over the years, but the L'Oreal stock itself is the most valuable thing she owns.

L'Oreal is world's largest cosmetics maker

Founded in 1909, the French conglomerate L'Oreal is today the world's largest cosmetics maker and owns brands like Lancome, Kiehl's, Maybelline and Garnier. It employs more than 85,000 people around the world. In 2022, it reported revenues of over €38 billion.

It wasn't always so profitable. The stock price was stuck for years, but since around 2011, the company's shares have been on an upward trend. Its stock price topped €100 in 2012, and aside from a COVID-19 slowdown, it has only climbed since then.

Back on track, it momentarily hit an all-time high of €460 a share on December 19, giving the company a market capitalization of over €240 billion. This is what pushed Bettencourt Meyers over the $100-billion mark.

She isn't the wealthiest person in France, though. That title goes to Bernard Arnault, the owner of luxury goods group LVMH and, for a time, the wealthiest person on the planet. He is currently worth $179 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Bumpy ride to the top

For Bettencourt Meyers, it wasn't an easy, automatic rise to the top. Sometimes, just being an heiress isn't enough. Over the years, she has avoided high society, written books, and strived to stay out of the public eye.

Yet she had a strained relationship with her mother. Things came to a head in a public spat that added to their family drama, making headlines worldwide and leading to one of the biggest scandals in France. One so shocking, it was simply called "L'affaire Bettencourt" and was recently turned into a three-part Netflix series.

Starting in 2007, Bettencourt Meyers accused several people of exploiting her mother's deteriorating mental health, an accusation that at one point even included former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Mother and daughter settled their feud out of court, and Bettencourt — along with her money, investments and property — was placed under the legal guardianship of her family.

Finding the right balance

During those long, epic legal battles, Bettencourt Meyers stood her ground and kept most of her mother's fortune intact. Today, it seems she has put that public relations disaster behind her.

Since her mother's death, Bettencourt Meyers has been fully in charge and has skyrocketed onto the various billionaire lists herself since 2018. In the past few years, she has seen her inherited $40-billion fortune more than double, thanks to an unprecedented stock boom at L'Oreal. But as always on the stock market, what goes up can come down.

Besides L'Oreal shares, she and the family have invested in other projects through their family-owned holding and investment company, Tethys.

Edited by: Ashutosh Pandey