More women have joined the ranks of the world’s wealthiest, but as a group females still hold a small sliver of total 10-figure fortunes. Of the 1,426 people on the new 2013 Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires, just 138 are women. That’s up from 104 women last year. New women billionaires include fashion designer Tory Burch and Hong Kong finance executive Pollyanna Chu.
The world’s richest woman is Liliane Bettencourt, the 90-year-old heiress to a 30% stake in cosmetics group L’Oreal. With a fortune that Forbes pegs at $30 billion –up $6 billion from last year, she ranks 9th wealthiest overall. A surge in the value of L’Oreal shares over the past year helped put her back among the top ten richest for the first time since 1999. Bettencourt, a widow who suffers from dementia, was replaced on the L’Oreal board in February 2012 by her grandson, Jean-Victor Meyers. In 2011, her fortune was put under the guardianship of her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, after three-year legal battle.
The second richest woman is Christy Walton of the U.S., who inherited her husband John Walton’s stake in Wal-Mart when he died in a plane crash in 2005. She clocks in at $28.2 billion — up nearly $3 billion from a year ago due to an increase in the price of Wal-Mart stock.
The third richest woman is yet another Walton family member — Alice Walton, daughter of visionary retailer Sam Walton, who founded Wal-Mart with his brother in 1962. Alice Walton, ranked number 16, has a net worth Forbes estimates $26.3 billion, up several billion from the previous year. Walton opened her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas in 2011. It features works from her personal collection.
