Françoise Bettencourt Meyers will no longer sit on L'Oréal's board of directors. On Thursday, February 6, the French beauty products group announced that the daughter of André and Liliane Bettencourt, the heiress of Eugène Schueller, founder of L'Oréal, will not seek renewal of her directorship at the next general meeting of shareholders, scheduled for April 29, 2025.
Bettencourt Meyers, 71, joined the group's board of directors in 1997. She has proposed that this position should henceforth be held by a representative of Téthys, the family holding company, the reference shareholder of the group listed on the Paris stock exchange.
Téthys will then be represented by its deputy director general, Alexandre Benais, who, following approval at the annual general meeting, would join the board of directors for a four-year term. To replace Bettencourt Meyers as vice president of the L'Oréal board, the Bettencourt Meyers family has proposed the appointment of board member Jean-Victor Meyers, alongside his brother Nicolas Meyers. Bettencourt Meyers' two sons have served on the board since 2012 and 2020 respectively. As a result, Téthys would retain three directorships on the 15-member board, under the chairmanship of Jean-Paul Agon, former CEO of L'Oréal.
Despite these changes, Bettencourt Meyers, the world's richest woman, whose fortune is estimated at over €72 billion by financial agency Bloomberg, will retain her position as president of Téthys. The family holding company holds 34.7% of the capital and voting rights of the L'Oréal group.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.