Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the L’Oréal heiress and the world’s wealthiest woman at the end of 2023, has faced a significant downturn in 2024.
Her fortune has plummeted by $26 billion to $74 billion, making her the second-largest wealth loser this year, trailing only Bernard Arnault, the French magnate behind luxury giant LVMH.
The 71-year-old vice-chair of L’Oréal’s board has seen her wealth eroded by the cosmetics company’s struggles.
Shares of L’Oréal have tumbled 25 percent this year, driven by disappointing demand in China, a key market for the beauty sector.
The downturn reflects broader challenges in the luxury and beauty industries, which have faced sluggish post-pandemic recovery and cautious consumer spending, Fortune reported.
Despite the setbacks, Bettencourt Meyers remains an active force in French business through Téthys Invest, her family’s private investment arm. Owned by Téthys, L’Oréal’s largest shareholder, the firm’s operations are partly funded by dividends from the cosmetics empire.
As chair of Téthys, Bettencourt Meyers oversees investments spanning industries from pet care to education, with stakes in companies like Septeo SAS (a French software firm), fashion retailer Sezane, and education provider Galileo Global Education.
She is the only child and heir of Liliane Bettencourt, and the granddaughter of Eugène Schueller, founder of L’Oréal. Her mother died in September 2017, after which her fortune tripled with her investments through her family holding company, Téthys Invest, and the high valuation of L’Oréal shares on the stock exchange.
The wealthiest woman’s fortunes follow the losses of the wealthiest man
Her stunning losses in 2024 are second only to Bernard Arnault the founder and acting CEO of LVMH Moët Hennest Louis Vuitton, a fashion luxury behemoth.
In March 2024, Arnault was estimated to be worth $231 billion, which put him ahead of Elon Musk who owns X, Tesla, and SpaceX, as well as Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
Remarkably, Arnault’s fortune shrunk by a staggering $54 billion in mid-September 2024 to $177 billion, placing him only $1 billion ahead of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison in fifth.
Arnault lost $30 billion in 2024, meaning he has lost the most amount of money in 2024. This is amongst 500 individuals ranked by Bloomberg.
It has truly been a bad year for Arnault, as he is the only one amongst the other 18 billionaires who are in the red for 2024. The other seventeen have earned at least $14 billion and as much as a mouth-watering $63 billion.
Bloomberg wealth rankings are not the only ones that have placed Arnault in red. For instance, Forbes wealth rankings also show that Arnault has gone from a fortune of $233 billion in March to $175 billion in September.