Tycoon faces world’s costliest divorce
BRITAIN: Roman Abramovich ended his last marriage with a reputed settlement of £150 million - small change for a multibillionaire. This time, the Russian oligarch may not be so lucky, after announcing that he has separated from his third wife, Dasha Zhukova.
The couple, who married in 2008 and have two children, insist the split is amicable, but they could get embroiled in the world’s costliest divorce if forced to untangle the tycoon’s £7 billion (NZ$12.4b) fortune.
Abramovich, 50, owns English football club Chelsea, the secondlargest yacht in the world and sev- eral luxury properties, including a mansion in New York and a property in Kensington Palace Gardens.
However, Zhukova, an art collector who is 15 years Abramovich’s junior, is the independently wealthy daughter of a Russian oil magnate and may not have any desire to pursue her husband for money.
In a joint statement, the couple said: ‘‘After 10 years together, the two of us have made the difficult decision to separate, but we remain close friends, parents and partners in the projects we developed together.’’
Legal experts said they expected Abramovich to have a pre-nuptial agreement in place, and any divorce proceedings would be dealt with by a Russian court in order to protect his assets - much like his previous divorce, when he is understood to have ended his 16-year marriage to second wife Irina Vyacheslavovna Malandina in Moscow in 2007. Details have remained hidden under Russia’s secretive legal system, but it is thought that Malandina was given a lump sum as well as four homes and provision for their five children.
Abramovich and Zhukova were first seen together in public in 2005. The oligarch was still mar- ried to Malandina, but Zhukova and her father, Alexander Zhukov, were invited to Abramovich’s New Year party later that year.
Her father is an oil, metals and banking tycoon who owns a mansion block in Kensington, west London, as well as homes in New York and Moscow.
The couple married secretly about nine years ago.
Abramovich married his first wife, Olga Yurevna Lysova, in December 1987 but they divorced just three years later. He wed Malandina in 1991, before he made his fortune in the Russian privatisation boom.
- Telegraph Group