Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers just inherited the £79.3 billion L'Oreal fortune following the death of her mother, Liliane Bettencourt.
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This is the 64-year-old who just inherited the £79 billion L'Oreal fortune and became one of the world's richest women
Her mother, 94-year-old Liliane Bettencourt, was the richest woman in the world until she died on Wednesday.
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By some estimates this makes the 64-year-old the richest woman on earth — though other calculations put Walmart billionaire Alice Walton on top.
94-year-old Bettencourt was the richest woman in the world until she died on Wednesday.
The Bettencourt family, which founded L'Oreal, has a 33% stake in the company, which was worth $107.5 billion (£79.3 billion) as of May 2017.
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In 2016 the company reported revenue of €25.8 billion (£22.8 billion), according to Bloomberg.
Bettencourt's father Eugene Schueller founded the company in 1907, and when he died she was his only heir.
As of Friday morning, her net worth was $46.3 billion (£34.2 billion), according to Forbes.
As Bettencourt's only child, under French law Bettencourt-Meyers, who heads the family's investment company, will inherit, according to Bloomberg, and must receive at least half of her mother's estate.
In 2011, her properties alone included a Classical style villa in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a mansion off of the Brittany Coast, and a secluded island in Seychelles.
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Bettencourt-Meyers was born on July 10, 1953.
According to WealthX, she serves as the president of her own family foundation, the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, which had around $683 million (£504 million) in assets as of 2010. She also has an academic career, and is the author of books on Greek mythology and Jewish-Christian relations.
She is married to Jean-Victor Meyers, the grandson of a rabbi who was murdered in Auschwitz.
The marriage was controversial, as her grandfather, Eugène Schueller, was tried for collaboration with the Nazi regime.
But this is hardly the only controversial trial in her family history.
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In 2008, Bettencourt-Meyers filed a criminal complaint against François-Marie Banier, a well-known French photographer and long-time friend of her mother.
She accused him of taking advantage of her mother's confused mental state to defraud the aging heiress of more than $1 billion in cash and gifts. The case became known as "The Bettencourt Affair."
François-Marie Banier allegedly manipulated Bettencourt into giving him cash, expensive art, and life insurance policies.
The investigation drove a wedge between Bettencourt and her daughter, and the pair only mended their relationship after the lawsuit against Banier was dropped in late 2010.
However, in October 2011, a judge decared that Bettencourt was mentally unfit to manage the family's wealth, placing it under the legal control of her daughter and grandsons.
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She had since been under their guardianship, and was replaced on L'Oréal's board by Jean-Victor Meyers in 2012, Forbes reported.
"In this painful moment for us, I would like to reiterate, on behalf of our family, our entire commitment and loyalty to L'Oreal and to renew my confidence in its President Jean-Paul Agon and his teams worldwide," Bettencourt-Meyers said in an emailed statement.
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