Liliane Bettencourt: L'Oreal heiress and world's richest woman dies aged 94

L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, the world's richest woman, has died at the age of 94, her family has said.

Her daughter Francoise Bettencourt Meyers said on Thursday that her mother "left peacefully" at her home in Paris, France overnight.

Mrs Bettencourt was the daughter of Eugene Schueller, who founded a company in 1909 which turned into the L'Oreal group.

Forbes magazine estimated her fortune to be worth £31.5 billion this year.

L'Oreal chairman and chief executive Jean-Paul Agon expressed "great admiration" for Mrs Bettencourt.

Mr Agon said she "always looked" after the company and its employees and "she has personally contributed greatly to its success for many years".

Mrs Bettencourt left the company’s board in 2012 but she remained in the news after several people were found guilty of exploiting her health after a dementia diagnosis.

Born in 1922 in Paris, she married French politician Andre Bettencourt at the age of 27. Her husband notably served as a minister at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. He died in 2007.

Mrs Bettencourt inherited the L'Oreal fortune upon the death of her father in 1957. When the company went public six years later, she continued to own a majority stake.

Her first job, at the age of 15, was as an apprentice in a L'Oreal factory, mixing cosmetics and labelling bottles of shampoo.

Mrs Bettencourt, who was suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, is survived by her daughter, who was born in 1953.