The world&#8217;s wealthiest woman, L&#8217;Oreal heiress <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/liliane-bettencourt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Liliane Bettencourt</a>, has died, according to a statement from her daughter on Thursday. She was 94 and was the thirteenth richest person in the world at the time of her death, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at $44.7 billion.
&#8220;Liliane Bettencourt died last night at home,&#8221; her daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers wrote in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/21/world-richest-woman-liliane-bettencourt-dies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a statement to the Guardian</a>. &#8220;She died peacefully.&#8221;
Bettencourt owned 33% of makeup giant L&#8217;Oreal, which her father Eugene Schueller founded in 1907. Bettencourt was Schueller&#8217;s only daughter and sole heiress. She appeared on Forbes&#8216; first ever World&#8217;s Billionaires List in 1987 with a net worth of over $1 billion.
&#8220;We all had a great admiration for Liliane Bettencourt who always looked after L&#8217;Oreal, the company and its employees, and was very attached to its success and development,&#8221; Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L&#8217;Oreal, said in <a href="http://www.euroinvestor.com/news/2017/09/21/loreal-news-release-the-passing-of-mrs-liliane-bettencourt/13676988" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a statement</a>. &#8220;She has personally contributed greatly to its success for many years.&#8221;
Bettencourt was famously press-shy, but her later years were mired by public court battles. In 2011, a court found Bettencourt, who had dementia, unfit to manage her affairs and placed her under the guardianship of her daughter and her grandsons. Her grandson Jean-Victor Meyers replaced her on the company&#8217;s board the next year. In May 2015, a French court found eight people, including a photographer and several former wealth managers, guilty of taking advantage of Bettencourt&#8217;s mental state and swindling her out of millions of euros.
Over Bettencourt&#8217;s lifetime, L&#8217;Oreal has grown into a global beauty giant, employing 89,300 people worldwide. The company had $28.58 billion in sales in 2016 and has 34 beauty brands in its portfolio, including Kiehl&#8217;s, IT Cosmetics and Maybelline. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Kate Vinton</a>, FORBES STAFF

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The World’s Wealthiest Woman, L’Oreal Heiress Liliane Bettencourt, Dies At Age 94