Richest woman in the world is closing in on Bill Gates

The richest woman in the world is making up ground on Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates, but given how wealthy they both are there's still a significant gap between them.

She's Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, who made her money by being the granddaughter of L'Oreal founder Eugène Schueller.

Born in line to inherit a chunk of the incredibly lucrative beauty brand, Meyers has made her wealth by hanging onto her 33 percent stake in the family business.

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Her mother Liliane was the world's previous richest woman until her death in 2017 and given how rich they both are it made the title hereditary.

Inheriting her mother's fortune by being an only child had something to do with it as well, and her net worth just keeps climbing.

According to Forbes, her net worth went from a very healthy $80.5 billion (£64.2 billion) to new heights, as their current rich list has her with a net worth of $93.1 billion (£74.2 billion).

The richest woman in the world is also number 14 on the overall rich list globally, and she keeps adding to the pile.

She's only seven spaces behind Microsoft founder Bill Gates and is gaining ground, picking up $751 million (£599 million) since their last update while he's only gained a paltry $205 million (£163 million) so she's gaining ground on him.

However, before she can start cracking open the champagne and celebrating she's got a long way to go before the prospect of her leapfrogging the likes of Bill Gates is in any way realistic.

Despite her recent gains the L'Oréal heiress is still some $24 billion (£19 billion) short of net worth if she wants to fully close the gap on Gates.

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Of course that'd also have to mean him not adding to his absolutely honking mahoosive fortune while she catches up, so while she's gaining ground now it would be quite a tall order for her to overhaul Bill Gates in the number seven spot.

According to Forbes it'd be quite the tall order just to crack the top 10 list of world's richest people.

There's a gap of $15.4 billion (£12.2 billion) between Michael Bloomberg's $96.3 billion net worth and Google co-founder Sergey Brin's more sizable value of $111.7 billion (£89 billion).

While there's nothing to be sniffed at when it comes to the world's 14th richest person she still has quite a way to overtake the people ahead of her and declare to all that the age of Bill Gates is over.