The world's richest woman and L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt passed away on September 21 at the age of 94. Her daughter, Françoise Bettencourt Myers, said in a statement that her mother "passed away quietly and calmly" at her Parisian home.

Liliane Bettencourt was a major shareholder in cosmetics giant L'Oreal and was ranked 14th richest person in the world according to Forbes magazine. In March 2017, her fortune was estimated at 29.1 billion euros. Since 2012, Bettencourt has ceased to appear in public, but her name constantly appeared in the headlines in connection with a lawsuit with a family that demanded that she be declared incapacitated due to senile dementia and Alzheimer's disease.


Liliane Bettencourt with her daughter, 2011

Liliane Bettencourt was born in Paris in 1922 to Eugène Schüller, founder of the cosmetics company L'Oreal, and Louise Madeleine Bert, who died when the girl was five years old. At the age of 15, Lillian got a job with her father in the company, sticking labels on shampoo.


In 1950, she married André Bettencourt, a French politician and future minister under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The couple lived together for 57 years, their only daughter, Francoise Bettencourt, was born to them. For many years, the couple could not get rid of the accusations of supporting the Nazis. Lillian was a member of the pro-fascist Cagular organization, which was financed by her father, and her husband wrote several anti-Semitic articles. However, towards the end of the war, André Bettencourt had joined the French Resistance and subsequently regretted writing the articles.


1988

Lilian inherited the company after her father's death in 1957 and has been involved with L'Oreal for over 50 years. François Dahl was appointed CEO and breathed new life into the company and created the brand we know today.


year 2001.

In 1987, together with her daughter and husband Liliane, she founded the Bettencourt Schüller Foundation, whose goal is to help develop humanitarian, medical and cultural projects.


1970s.

Throughout her career at L'Oreal, her position was subjected to relentless criticism, and in 2007 Bettencourt was awarded the Black Planet Award, the anti-award of the German organization Ethecon Foundation, which is given to those who harm the planet.


Liliane Bettencourt regularly became the richest man in France and for many years was the richest woman in the world. Her life has always been saturated with the smell of money and politics with an admixture of scandal.


The heiress was closely associated with at least three French presidents, her name almost never left the pages of gossip. For most of her life, Bettencourt was famous for her name, but not for her actions, although she worked in her father's company from the age of 15, starting as an intern.


After the death of Liliane's husband, André Bettencourt, in 2007, Françoise Bettencourt Myers, her only daughter, went to court, accusing the photographer François-Marie Bagnier of taking advantage of the mother's fortune, who, during their friendship since 1987, gave him gifts in the amount of 1.3 billion euros. These gifts included, among others, a €253 million life insurance policy in 2003 and another €262 million policy in 2006, 11 works of art worth €20 million, including paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Delaunay and Léger, photograph of surrealist Man Ray and cash. Banier denies all allegations.


The scandal got a new round in 2008, when the daughter gave the police recordings of conversations between her mother and the manager. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy also came under suspicion for taking advantage of Bettencourt's failing mental health and receiving campaign funding in 2007.


With husband, 1972

In October 2011, a court ruled that Liliane Bettencourt was suffering from dementia (senile dementia) and gave her daughter control of her mother's health and income (about 17 billion euros and 33 percent of L'Oreal shares).


1970s.


From left to right in the front row at the 1979 Chanel show, Claude Pompidou, Bernadette Chirac - the wife of then mayor Jacques Chirac, Liliane Bettencourt and Eva Barr, wife of the French Prime Minister in 1976-1981.


With Greek opera singer Maria Callas in 1968.


Bettencourt house in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Liliane Betancourt is the richest woman in the world, who personally proved by her example that every woman can succeed in everything: both in her career and in her personal life. Her work always becomes the center of attention. And all because she is a socialite, a recognized philanthropist and a fairly successful business woman. It was she who allowed L’Oreal to flourish and gave her the slogan recognizable all over the world - because you deserve it!

The future billionaire was born on October 21, 1922. Her parents were very wealthy people. Father, Eugene Schueller, had a subtle entrepreneurial flair. Being a brilliant scientist and chemist-technologist, he founded the cosmetics company L'Oreal, recognizable by all. It was he who in 1909 became the first to invent hair dye. And this step was a breakthrough in society's idea of ​​\u200b\u200bfemale beauty. The new product sold out at lightning speed. Inspired by victory, Eugene decided to produce soap. But this decision was not immediately marked by success. And all because the French at the beginning of the twentieth century rarely used hygiene products, they even washed their hair with soap shavings. Therefore, the idea with soap from entrepreneur Schueller was received ambiguously.

All this revolted the genius. He decided to create a series of radio shows to make people aware of the need for cosmetics for health. It was the right marketing move, and the product began to sell. Eugene's next invention was shampoo, which also proved to be a popular product with consumers.

Little Lillian was not yet part of her father's business life, but showed some interest in his inventions. This did not last long. The girl, at the age of 5, had to leave for the Dominican Republic. This decision was made by the father, trying to protect the baby from a terrible shock - the death of mother Louise (1926). Far from home, Lillian was not only reeling from shock. In the Dominican Republic, she managed to get an excellent education.

Lilian returned home at the age of 15. And almost immediately she began to work in the company, obeying the will of her father. Eugene firmly decided that it was Lillian who was obliged to continue the work of his life.

Interesting fact. Lillian was never interested in chemistry and cosmetology. She was interested in cinema, with which she most likely connected her life, if by the will of fate she had not inherited all her father's property.

The first job that Eugene entrusted to his daughter was gluing labels on cosmetic bottles.

But the rather measured life of the Schueller family was interrupted by the war. It was at that time that Lillian's health failed, she fell ill with tuberculosis, and her father sent her to Switzerland for treatment. Here the girl met with a man who was a member of the fascist group La Cagoule. His name was Andre Betancourt, and later he became her husband.

Interesting fact. La Cagoule was sponsored by Lillian's father. And later, after the war, Lillian's husband was persecuted. Because of this, the whole family had to hide in the Schueller family mansion (Paris). At this time, the Betancourts had a daughter, Francoise (1953).

Lilian's Inheritance

After the death of her father, thirty-five-year-old Lillian had to become the main shareholder of L'Oreal (1957). Even then, the company was flourishing. Her goods were bought not only in France, but throughout Europe. Cosmetics were sold even in the USA. And the only disadvantage of such activities seemed to Lilian the lack of a product for young women. After all, then L’Oreal offered goods only to women in their 30s and 40s.

Therefore, Betancourt began to actively expand the boundaries of the company. At first, she started buying up famous cosmetic brands. And she released a popular line for young people called Maybelline. These actions were quite successful and L'Oreal became the world's largest manufacturer of cosmetics and perfumes.

Considering that marketing is the key to successful sales, Bettencourt soon began a landmark collaboration with the advertising agency McCann Erickson (1967). The specialists of this company developed a marketing policy for the L'Oreal concern, according to which only world-famous cosmetic brands should advertise the products of the cosmetic brand. stars of cinema and show business. Thanks to McCann Erickson, who came up with the slogan for L'Oreal, the company is now recognized all over the world - "Because you deserve it."

Interesting fact! Having started doing business, Lillian has repeatedly admitted that she is grateful to her father for the knowledge and life experience, thanks to which she realized that success and fame do not come in vain. All this needs to be earned by making important decisions, taking risky steps in order to promote and develop the business.

The Golden Age of Betancourt

In 1974, Lillian made another successful move - she began cooperation with concern Nestle. The first step in this direction was the sale of half of the shares of the L'Oreal brand to new partners. In return, she acquired a 5% stake in Nestle. The purchase was a winning one for Betancourt. Thanks to this, she managed to become the largest private shareholder of this company.

Interesting fact. Nestle in the 80s of the twentieth century planned to completely control the profits and votes of L'Oreal, but Lillian managed to renegotiate the agreement, according to which, until the end of her life, Nestle had the right to increase its share of ownership in the cosmetics company.

Despite the fact that Lillian was no longer the only owner of her father's company, she actively continued to achieve the prosperity of the company. To that end, she launched L'Oreal into four important cosmetics segments:

  • high-quality decorative cosmetics;
  • skin care products;
  • hair care products;
  • sales of exclusive perfumery products.

Lilian's success lies in the fact that 47 L'Oreal factories were opened in 22 countries around the world. Thanks to her, the company began to work with all distribution channels: perfume shops, professional beauty salons, supermarkets, pharmacies, postal catalogs, the World Wide Web.

Forbes rating

Liliane Betancourt has been one of the three richest women in France for many decades and is in the TOP-20 of the richest people in the world:

  • in 2011-2012, she got the fifteenth position in the Forbes rating;
  • in 2013, she managed to increase her net worth and climb to 9th place;
  • in 2014, her capital increased again, but not so significantly compared to competitors, so Betancourt dropped to 11th place in the ranking;
  • in 2015, she took the 10th position. Her personal net worth was over $40 billion;
  • in 2016, Lilian's capital decreased slightly, and therefore her rating position became one step lower;
  • in 2017, the fortune of a wealthy entrepreneur decreased again, so today she is ranked 14th in the Forbes ranking.

Despite the fact that Betancourt is not included in the list of leaders in the ranking of the famous publication, she was recognized as the most influential woman in the world.

Family life

The husband of a successful business woman, André Betancourt, after long persecution, held many high positions: he was the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Industry of France, Culture and Art, and even the Minister of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, he was the vice chairman of L'Oreal.

In 2007, he passed away, and this event was a real blow for Lillian. But the publicity of a business woman did not allow her to go through grief calmly, and she became the victim of many unpleasant gossip. There were rumors that Liliane, long before Andre's death, had a lover - the photographer Francois-Marie Bagne. It was rumored that she was incredibly generous to him: she presented expensive gifts, bought life insurance policies and simply gave out pocket money in fabulous sums - billions.

Fearing that Lillian would make this photographer the heir to all property, her daughter Françoise turned to the national police with a request to investigate, accusing her mother of insanity.

Interesting fact. Françoise and Liliane were in long legal proceedings with each other over the inheritance. Either the daughter or the mother filed various lawsuits against each other with allegations of mental instability or violence. But as a result of all these proceedings, they managed to come to reconciliation.

Activities in recent years

In 2011, a successful business woman became very ill. She was stricken with Alzheimer's disease. Because of this, in 2012, she had to leave the board of directors of L'Oreal. She was succeeded by her grandson Jean-Victor Meyers, and the right to inherit the L'Oreal beauty empire went to her daughter Francoise.

Despite her incapacity in business activities, 94-year-old Betancourt continues to lead an active lifestyle. She sold her properties in the Seychelles worth $60 million and is engaged in charitable work.

On September 21, 2017, relatives reported that Liliane Bettencourt died at the age of 94, until the last days of her life she remained the richest woman in the world.

Charity

Back at the end of the 20th century (1987), Liliane Betancourt and her husband founded the Betancourt-Schueller Foundation charitable project. Here they invested money (at least 160 million euros annually) to support medical, cultural and humanitarian programs:

  • 55% of L'Oreal's profits are spent each year on research and education. The winners of various grants annually receive 250,000 euros for the development of their projects;
  • 33% - for humanitarian and social projects, in particular for events dedicated to the fight against AIDS;
  • 12% - for culture and art. Recently, thanks to the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation, a wing of the Marmottan-Monnet Museum has been restored.

Interesting fact. In 2010, Liliane Betancourt was accused of allegedly sponsoring the campaign program of presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. There was a long discussion about this.

The life of Liliane Betancourt is riddled with scandals, gossip and intrigue. She was accused of many acts not only by political officials, but also by members of her own family. At the same time, Lillian managed to retain the status of one of the richest and most influential women on the planet, whom you want to admire.

France: Betancourt photographer and property manager sentenced to real prison terms.

“Even at 78, Betancourt remains a mystery,” wrote L’Express magazine in 2002. After another 10 years, he dubbed Liliane Betancourt "an unknown celebrity." It would seem that there should be a sea of ​​​​information about such a woman. After all, she was one of the most prominent characters in secular society - the owner of L'Oreal, the wife of a well-known politician who held ministerial posts several times, the president of one of the largest charitable foundations in France, Bettencourt-Schueller (see inset), not to mention the title of the richest woman country and world. But Betancourt did not like the hype around her name and conversations with journalists. L'Express approached people from her entourage, but they could not convince her to give an interview. “She is afraid to get involved in a game where in the future she will not be begged,” one of them told the publication. "Without a doubt, this is one of the last great ladies of Paris - Proust's Paris - which was Marie-Helene de Rothschild and are the Countess Ornano or Claude Pompidou," reasoned another.

Speaking about her, people mentioned "extreme simplicity", "modesty" and even "a certain strictness in morality." Others said that she was "enthusiast", passionate about medicine and psychology, curious and generous: "This is a woman who loves life and knows that life has spoiled her."

Father's daughter

Lillian's father Eugene Schuller had to think about earning money on his own early on. He came from a wealthy baker's family, but in 1891 a Panamanian scam left the family stranded. The question arose whether Eugene would receive a higher education. But he managed: by peddling, he was able to earn enough to receive a diploma in chemistry in 1904, writes The Guardian. Then he got a job as an assistant to a professor at the Sorbonne and worked part-time with a hairdresser who needed a specialist to formulate hair products. The paint created by Eugene turned out to be so good that he decided to create his own business. So in a two-room Parisian apartment, which served simultaneously as an office, laboratory and showroom, in 1909 the history of L'Oreal began.

By October 1922, when Lillian Schuller, the future Betancourt, was born, it was a steady growing business. The trouble came from where they did not expect. Lillian was not five years old when her mother died. She was fond of music, taught solfeggio and “after her death, there was no more music in our house,” Lillian L’Express quotes.

For lack of evidence

During the litigation, it became known that the wife of the Minister of Social Affairs, Eric Werth, who became famous for campaigns against tax evaders, works in a company that manages the state of Betancourt. Claire Thibout, Betancourt's former accountant, testified that Werth, as treasurer of Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement, received donations from Betancourt without declaring them. Allegedly and personally, Sarkozy was also a frequent visitor to the Betancourt house and left with envelopes of cash when he was mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1983-2002. The case against Sarkozy was closed for lack of evidence in October 2013. And the case of breach of trust and weakness of Bettencourt dragged on until 2015. As a result, eight people were found guilty of extorting money and gifts from the heiress of the L’Oreal empire. Banier received three years in prison, a €350,000 fine, and had to return €158 million to Betancourt, in addition to what he returned voluntarily during the trials. Werth was fully justified.

Betancourt later admitted to The Guardian that she was jealous of the women who "circled around her father." Perhaps that is why he remarried only six years later, in 1932, writes The Guardian. Lillian remained his only child, he doted on her soul. “I’m daddy’s girl,” she told L’Express. This did not mean idleness. Schuller got up every day at 4 am and devoted 45 minutes to walking, not counting physical education classes with a trainer who came to the house. The father instilled in his daughter discipline, punctuality, diligence. He sent his daughter to be raised by Dominican nuns. From the age of 15, Lillian began to train at L'Oreal - three weeks at the end of the summer holidays. And I started with menial work: pasting labels.

vicissitudes of war

Lillian was not interested in politics, unlike her father. Since the 1930s he sponsored the anti-communist pro-fascist movement Comite secret d'action revolutionnaire (CSAR, "Secret Committee of the Revolutionary Struggle"), better known as La Cagoule. During the occupation, he co-founded the political movement Mouvement social revolutionnaire, which aimed to fight capitalism, Bolshevism, Judaism and Freemasonry, lists The Guardian.

Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers inherited a huge fortune L'oreal after the death on 20 October of her mother Liliane Bettencourt. By some estimates, this makes the 64-year-old woman the richest woman on earth.

As of October 29, Bettencourt-Meyers' net worth was $42.3 billion, according to Bloomberg.

The Bettencourt family, who founded L'oreal, owns a 33% stake in the company, which was valued at $107.5 billion in May 2017.

In 2011, Bettencourt-Meyers owned a classic-style villa in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a mansion in Brittany Coast and a secluded island in the Seychelles.

Betancourt-Meyers was born on July 10, 1953. She is the president of her own family foundation, the Bettencourt-Schueler Foundation, which has raised about $683 million since 2010. She also holds a PhD and is the author of books on Greek mythology and Jewish-Christian relations.

Many women I know say that she can spend several hours a day playing the piano, is very closed and "lives as if in her own cocoon."

The only child in the family, she adored her parents. Her father served four times in the French Cabinet and was a member of the National Assembly. He was often and for a long time absent from home, so that Francoise spent most of the time with her mother. The tastes and characters of women, however, were completely different. Lillian was a society lady and adored luxurious toilets. The daughter was a closed intellectual and spent more time with the piano and books than at masquerades and secular dinners. She is now the author of a five-volume study of the Bible, writes .

The crack in the relationship between the two women was caused by Françoise's marriage: in 1984, she married Jean-Pierre Meyers, grandson of a rabbi killed in Auschwitz. With her husband, Francoise raised her two sons in Judaism, which finally alienated mother and daughter from each other.

Liliane Bettencourt spoke very bluntly about this: “Since 2003, Francoise and I have not spoken.” The piquancy of the situation is that the father of Lillian herself and the founder L'Oreal Eugene Schueller once supported anti-Semitic groups and after the war was accused of collaborating with the Nazis.

Francoise herself denies that the cause of the friction is her marriage. The real alienation, according to her, began in the early 1990s, when the famous French photographer Francois-Marie Bagnier began to “screw in” into their family. Her mother began to avoid her.

As a result, in 2008, Bettencourt-Meyers filed a criminal complaint against François-Marie Bagnier, accusing him of taking advantage of her mother's difficult mental state to defraud an elderly heiress of more than $1 billion in cash and gifts. . François-Marie Bagnier was allegedly manipulated by Battencourt, who provided him with cash, expensive art, insurance policies and checks totaling more than one billion three hundred thousand dollars.

The investigation into this case brought discord between Battencourt and her daughter, who claimed that in this way she "simply wanted her mother back."

During the investigation, the police seized the will of Mrs. Bettencourt, in which she declares Bagne her sole heir. According to the butler, having drawn up the document, the lady immediately forgot who exactly she made happy. The fact that the daughter's lawyer used as further evidence that the old woman was simply out of her mind.

“If a woman does not know who her heir is, whether she has an island or not, then it is clear that she is not in a position to make any decisions.”

At the end of August 2010, lawyer Liliane Betancourt announced that Bagnier was no longer the heir - his client realized that she had already given him too much, and the lawsuit against the photographer was canceled. After that, the relationship between Lillian and the Francoise began to improve.

However, in October 2011, a judge ruled that Bettencourt, due to her mental condition, was unable to manage the family's property. As a result, the court gave her under the care of her daughter and grandchildren. Since then, she has been under their care, and in the company L'Oreal her position was taken by Françoise's son Jean-Victor Meyers.

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