Liliane Bettencourt biography

She was a French heiress and businesswoman, who was one of the principal shareholders of L’Oréal. Counted among the most powerful women in the world, she was France’s richest woman and the second richest woman in the world, slightly behind Christy Walton. She was born as the only child of Eugène Schueller, founder of L’Oréal, one of the world’s largest cosmetics and beauty companies.

Liliane Bettencourt Age

She was born as Liliane Henriette Charlotte Schueller on 21 October 1922, Paris, France. Her birth sign was Libra. Currently died with 94 years.

Liliane Bettencourt Nationality

She was a French woman.

Liliane Bettencourt Family

She was the only child of Louise Madeleine Berthe and Eugène Schueller, the brilliant entrepreneur who founded what was to become the world’s largest cosmetics, shampoo, and beauty group after developing a revolutionary hair dye in the family kitchen. Her mother died when she was just five years old and she formed a close bond with her father whom she adored. At 15 she joined her father’s company as an apprentice and in 1950 married André Bettencourt, a politician. He was a close friend of her father, served as a minister under Charles de Gaulle and became deputy chairman of L’Oréal.

If money cannot buy happiness, a huge fortune can buy silence, helping the Bettencourt family to escape scrutiny over the more suspect aspects of its history. André Bettencourt was a member of La Cagoule, a fascist organization that Liliane’s father funded and supported in the 1930s and that collaborated with the Nazis during the second world war. He also wrote for a vehicle of Nazi propaganda, the antisemitic magazine La Terre Française.

Liliane Bettencourt Marriage

Lilliane Bettencourt after marriage

She was married in 1950,  she married French politician André Bettencourt, who served as a cabinet minister in French governments of the 1960s and 1970s and rose to become deputy chairman of L’Oréal. Mr. Bettencourt had been a member of La Cagoule, a violent French fascist pro-Nazi group that Liliane’s father, a Nazi sympathizer, had funded and supported in the 1930s and whose members were arrested in 1937. After the war, her husband, like other members of La Cagoule, was given refuge at L’Oréal despite his politically inconvenient past. Eventually, the Bettencourt’s settled in an Art Moderne mansion built-in 1951 on rue de Delabordère in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. They had one daughter, Françoise, who was born in 1953.

As of December 2012, she owned 185,661,879 (30.5%) of the outstanding shares of L’Oréal, of which 76,441,389 (12.56%) shares are effectively held in trust (for her daughter). The remainder is owned as follows: 178,381,021 (29.78%) shares owned by Nestlé, 229,933,941 (37.76%) shares are publicly held, and the remainder are held as treasury stock or in the company savings plan. The Bettencourt family and Nestlé act in concert pursuant to a shareholders’ agreement. she ended her Board Director tenure on 13 February 2012 and her grandson, Jean-Victor, was appointed as Board Director. Bettencourt’s daughter and her daughter’s husband (Jean-Pierre Meyers) are also members of the board of directors.

Liliane Bettencourt Carrer

She started her career when she was introduced to the business by his father. She developed an interest in the business at an early age and started helping her father as an apprentice in his company as a teenager. Having lost her mother at a very young age, she was especially close to her father and worked alongside him in expanding their business. She went on to marry French politician André Bettencourt. Over the years she rose to become deputy chairman of L’Oréal and inherited the L’Oréal fortune upon the death of her father, becoming the company’s principal shareholder. An ambitious businesswoman, she worked tirelessly to expand the business and acquired numerous other cosmetic brands. In addition to being one of the richest persons in the world, she also grabbed the media attention due to her estrangement from her only daughter and her controversial relationship with the much younger.

n June 2010, during the Bettencourt affair, she became embroiled in a high-level French political scandal after other details of the tape recordings made by her butler became public. The tapes allegedly picked up conversations between her and her financial adviser, Patrice de Maistre, which indicate that she may have avoided paying taxes by keeping a substantial amount of cash in undeclared Swiss bank accounts. The tapes also allegedly captured a conversation between her and a French budget minister Éric Woerth, who was soliciting a job for his wife managing Bettencourt’s wealth, while running a high-profile campaign to catch wealthy tax evaders as the budget minister. Moreover, she received a €30 million tax rebate while Woerth was a budget minister.

At the time of her death in 2017, she was the richest woman in the world.

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