Double for France: Bernard Arnault, CEO of world number one luxury LVMH, and Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to L’Oréal, are, with their family, the richest man and woman in the world, a “first”, according to Forbes’ annual ranking for 2023 released Tuesday.
In 2022, Bernard Arnault ranked third in the annual ranking dominated by Elon Musk, head of Tesla, Twitter or SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
But last December, the French billionaire had dethroned them by becoming the world’s richest with his family, according to the “real-time” ranking established by the magazine, based in particular on stock prices and exchange rates.
In the 2023 world cap published Tuesday, his fortune is estimated at 211 billion dollars -Forbes specifies that it “calculated net fortunes using stock prices and exchange rates on Friday, March 11, 2023.”
“For the first time in the history of the ranking, the richest man and woman in France are also the richest in the world. A double performance that testifies to the vigor of the French economy despite the successive crises that our country is going through, directly or indirectly. indirectly”, highlights Forbes France in its press release.
43 billionaires in France
Elon Musk ranks second in the world ranking, with an estimated fortune of 180 billion dollars, ahead of Jeff Bezos (114 billion), Larry Ellison, co-founder of the software publisher Oracle (107 billion) and the Warren Buffett businessman. (106 billion).
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (and her family) -eleventh richest in the world with 80,500 million dollars- is for the third consecutive year the richest woman in the world. She had also been in 2019, succeeding her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, the first woman in the ranking in 2016 and 2017.
In France, Forbes lists a total of 43 billionaires, including seven women, “for a total fortune that has increased by 20.6% since 2022.”
Behind Bernard Arnault and Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, are François Pinault, founder of the Kering luxury group, then the brothers Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, owners of the Chanel house, in fourth and fifth position.
Ranked sixth “the first billionaire in the ranking of another horizon” that luxury and beauty, Emmanuel Besnier, head of Lactalis. The children of Jacques Saadé, founder of the CMA CGM shipping group, Rodolphe, Tanya and Jacques Jr, respectively occupy positions 8, 9 and 10.
The “two brothers enemies of mobile telephony”, Xavier Niel (18th) and Patrick Drahi (22nd), owners of Free and SFR, drop in the ranking.
Source: BFM TV
