L'Oreal had said it had the funds to buy back the stake that Nestle holds in the cosmetics firm. Nestle has a EUR 23 billion or USD 30 billion stake in the French company. L'Oreal Chief Executive Officer Jean-Paul Agon, however, did not give any indication whether they will buy its stake back from Nestle.

In a press conference on Friday, Agon said, "I didn't say that we wished to buy Nestle's holding. I simply said that we had significant financial resources because we have positive cash flow and the 9 percent of Sanofi."

As of the end of June, the cosmetics manufacturer had EUR 572 million in net cash. Meanwhile, drugmaker Sanofi is the second largest company in France which has a market value of nearly EUR 100 billion. This makes the 9% stake held by L'Oreal significant.

Agon also stressed that L'Oreal could dispose of its stake in Sanofi if it needed to. "The cash is there to use. We will see if the opportunities are there to use it. We have always said that our stake in Sanofi is financial and not strategic so therefore we could use it if an opportunity presented itself," he said.