L'Oreal nominates Nestle CEO Bulcke to board

PARIS - French cosmetics giant L'Oreal said it had nominated Nestle Chief Executive Paul Bulcke to its board.

Bulcke will be proposed at the next annual meeting in April along with another of the Swiss food group's senior executives, Christiane Kuehne, L'Oreal said in a statement on Friday.

The announcement comes less than a month after L'Oreal said 89-year-old company heiress Liliane Bettencourt would be replaced on the board by her 25-year-old grandson Jean-Victor Meyers.

Bettencourt, France's richest woman, lost control of her business affairs to daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers in an October court ruling on the grounds of declining mental capacity.

Nestle and the Bettencourt family own around 30 percent of L'Oreal. Nestle executives first joined L'Oreal's board in 1990, after the Swiss group became its largest corporate shareholder.

The Nestle nominees are to replace Chief Technology officer Werner Bauer and former Executive Vice President Francisco Castañer, who retired in 2009. (Reporting by Astrid Wendlandt; Editing by Laurence Frost and Will Waterman)