The £27BILLION divorce that’s still a good deal for Mr Amazon
(So HE has to get by on just £87bn!)
SHE has kept a dignified silence amid lurid disclosures about her billionaire ex-husband’s affair with a former TV presenter.
However, MacKenzie Bezos, 48, can finally face the world with a smile on her face after a divorce which makes her the planet’s third richest woman.
Last night it emerged that she will have a £27billion stake in Amazon, the online giant she set up with her ex Jeff Bezos. There were suggestions last night that the deal was good for him as he keeps control of Amazon and remains the world’s wealthiest man.
Their divorce after 25 years of marriage will dwarf previous settlements, such as the estimated £2.9billion handed over during the 1999 split between art dealer Alec Wildenstein and his wife Jocelyn.
Mother-of-four Mrs Bezos set up her own Twitter account to break the news.
She said she was ‘excited about my own plans’ adding: ‘Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next’.
Meanwhile Bezos posted a gushing tweet, saying she had ‘been an extraordinary partner, ally and mother’.
The couple split up after the shock revelation in January that Bezos, 55, had embarked on an affair with Lauren Sanchez, 49.
Pictures and racy text messages obtained by National Enquirer magazine featured explicit seminude images which the pair had exchanged over several months.
The US magazine also published pictures of the couple gazing into each other’s eyes and holding hands while both were still married. During their affair, they travelled thousands of miles for secret romantic getaways.
Miss Sanchez is now going through her own divorce and has not been seen in public with Bezos since the scandal broke.
He tops the Forbes rich list with a net wealth of £114billion and retains control of Amazon under the divorce. Mrs Bezos revealed on Twitter that she would keep 25 per cent of the couple’s shares while her former husband would keep 75 per cent.
According to a legal document filed yesterday, this means she now owns four per cent of Amazon, the equivalent of £27billion in stock. Her ex-husband remains the largest shareholder in the online shopping giant, recently valued at £688billion. However it is not known how they will split up their vast property portfolio and other assets.
The Bezos family has a spread of properties across the US worth tens of millions with the Amazon mogul ranked the 28th largest landowner in the country.
Their portfolio includes a ranch in Texas, two homes in Beverly Hills, a property in Seattle as well as another mansion in the suburbs and three apartments in Manhattan. Bezos also has significant investments across tech companies including Uber, Airbnb and Twitter, which could also be divided up.
The couple were married in 1993, six months after they met at a New York hedge fund where Bezos interviewed MacKenzie for an assistant’s job. She asked him to lunch and they were engaged within three months.
Mrs Bezos helped him to set up Amazon in their garage when she acted as accountant and made deals. According to the Forbes rich list, the Amazon shares alone make her the world’s third richest woman behind Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, of L’Oreal fortune, worth £37.8billion, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton, worth £34billion.
‘Excited about my own plans’