The net worth of the world’s richest woman, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, plummeted on Friday, February 9th, as shares of the French cosmetics company L’Oreal, which is about one-third owned by the billionaire and her family, recorded their worst day since the Great Recession.
Bettencourt Meyers and her family’s fortune fell 6.9 billion dollars to 91.7 billion dollars on Friday, making the 70-year-old matriarch by far the biggest loser of any billionaire on Friday, according to Forbes‘ real-time billionaire tracker.
Furthermore, Bettencourt Meyers, who owes much of her fortune to her family’s stake in the cosmetics giant, remains the 15th richest person in the world and by far the richest woman, with 26 billion dollars more than the second richest woman, Walmart heiress Alice Walton.
Worst day for L’Oreal shares
Friday was the worst day for L’Oreal shares on the Paris stock exchange since December 27th, 2008, according to FactSet data.
Bettencourt Meyers, the granddaughter of L’Oreal founder Eugene Schueller and the only daughter of former richest woman in the world Liliane Bettencourt, serves as the vice president of the L’Oreal board.
L’Oreal is the sixth most valuable company in Europe by market capitalization, behind only pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, famous for its weight-loss drugs, food titan Nestle, Dutch semiconductor chipmaker ASML, and French brands LVMH and Hermes.
L’Oreal subsidiaries include Kiehl’s, Maybelline, and Garnier.
A 9% drop in L’Oreal shares since the beginning of the year has reduced the company’s market capitalization by 25 billion dollars, Forbes writes.
E.Dz.
