Now at number three behind the Waltons, is last year's number one Liliane Bettencourt, who is worth $15 billion. Daughter of Eugene Schueller, the founder of L'Oreal, one of the world's leading cosmetics companies, Bettencourt has had a controlling stake of 27 per cent in L'Oreal for the last four decades.
For Bettencourt, the financial crisis may not be her primary concern, as she's recently been burned by scandal. Not only was the family's fortune shaken when fraudulent US investor Bernie Madoff's high-profile ponzi scheme came crashing down, her own daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, filed a criminal complaint stating that Liliana allegedly gave $1.3 billion in assets and life insurance benefits to photographer Francoise-Marie Banier.
Last year she was worth $20 billion.