L’Oreal Chief Executive Jean-Paul Agon should add the role of chairman at the world’s No. 1 cosmetics group when Lindsay Owen-Jones’ departure is approved by the board on Thursday, according to Reuters, which cited sources close to the matter.

The resignation of Owen-Jones as chairman, first reported by the French media over the weekend, marks the end of an era but it does not herald a major strategy change, analysts said.

The move should be formally endorsed at Thursday’s board meeting to discuss annual results to be published after the market closes, Reuters says.

L’Oreal declined to comment on the reports about Owen-Jones’ departure.

Owen-Jones’s contract ran until 2014 but he had always said that he would step down on his 65th birthday, on March 17. He will stay on the group’s board, a source close him told Reuters.

“If Owen-Jones resigned from his post of chairman, it would be a half-surprise for the market as although his four-year mandate was renewed in 2010, he had said in 2006 he would only want one mandate,” CM-CIC Securities said in a note on Monday.

Owen-Jones started at L’Oreal in 1969 as a sales representative selling Dop shampoo in Normandy. He became group chief executive and chairman in 1988 at the age of 42 and is widely regarded as the man who transformed L’Oreal into a global business with brands today ranging from Garnier shampoo, Yves Saint Laurent lipstick and Lancome cream.

He was succeeded by L’Oreal veteran Agon in 2006.

“Owen-Jones expressed the desire that the plan (to resign) regarding the management of L’Oreal, set in 2006, was put into application at his 65th birthday,” a source close to Owen-Jones told Reuters.

L’Oreal has always said it preferred to appoint senior managers from within its ranks rather than external candidates.