The L'Oréal family’s heiress, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, closed 2023 on a high note as the first woman whose fortune notched $100 billion.
But the tables have turned in 2024 as Bettencourt Meyers becomes among the billionaires to lose the most wealth this year—second only to fellow French magnate Bernard Arnault.
The 71-year-old vice chair of L'Oréal’s board has seen her wealth nosedive by $26 billion to about $74 billion since the start of the year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Simultaneously, the beauty giant’s shares have fallen 25% as lackluster China demand has dented its earnings.
Despite the carnage, Bettencourt Meyers hasn’t refrained from supporting French ventures through her family’s investment firm, Téthys Invest. The firm is owned by an eponymous entity, Téthys, also L'Oréal’s largest shareholder. Therefore, the investments are partly funded by the cosmetics company’s dividends.
Bettencourt Meyers is the chair at Téthys, while the rest of her family—her husband, Jean-Pierre Meyers and their two sons, Jean-Victor and Nicolas—are also involved in running the show.
Téthys’s investments span industries from pet care to fashion. Some of the firm’s stakes are in niche French software company Septeo SAS, retailer Sezane, and education provider Galileo Global Education, Bloomberg reported.
The Bettencourt Meyers-run entity is actively expanding its investments, with a 26% increase in the number of deals this year that comprise a portfolio of at least 10 companies.
The L'Oréal heiress inherited the business from her mother Liliane Bettencourt, after she died in 2017. An academic by training, Bettencourt Meyers has been an influential figure in French business despite keeping a low profile.
She is the single biggest shareholder in L'Oréal, with a nearly 35% stake. Bettencourt Meyers’s grandfather founded the Paris-based L'Oréal in 1909 to make and supply hair dye to local hairdressers.
Over 100 years on, it’s become a global brand with a nearly €180 billion market cap and the likes of Maybelline and Garnier under it. Its operation stretches across consumer, professional, dermatological, and luxury products. The cosmetics company has since stumbled because of reluctant pandemic-era spending and a slow path to recovery thereafter.
As L'Oréal became a force to be reckoned with, Bettencourt Meyers, an only child, saw her wealth soar, making her the world’s richest woman.
She was recently unseated from that title when Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart’s founder Sam Walton, overtook her in August. The L'Oréal family empress is also far behind LVMH CEO Arnault, whose wealth stands at $168 billion—although he’s lost $40 billion just this year owing to a luxury industry slowdown.
Representatives at Téthys Invest didn’t immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.
