PARIS: French businesswoman and billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, whose family founded L’Oreal and still owns the largest stake in the cosmetics giant, has died aged 94, her daughter said on Thursday. Her death opens a new phase for L’Oreal, France’s fourth-largest listed company, altering the relationship it has with key shareholder Nestle, the Swiss food company. Bettencourt and her family owned 33 per cent of the company. She made the move out of fear that L’Oreal might be nationalised if the Socialists came to power in France. Paris-born Bettencourt joined her father Eugene Schueller’s firm as an apprentice at the age of 15, mixing cosmetics and labelling bottles of shampoo.

Source: New Strait Times September 21, 2017 20:37 UTC