Viscount Chelsea and his wife in £5.7billion divorce
THERE may be muted celebrations when the billionaire Cadogan family learn their property fortune has risen by £ 900 million in tomorrow’s Rich List rankings. For Viscount Chelsea, the 49-year-old heir to the vast Cadogan Estate empire across Chelsea and Knightsbridge, is on course for a rather expensive seven-figure divorce.
I’m told that Edward Cadogan has moved out of the marital home in Chelsea he shares with his wife of 26 years, Katharina, Lady Chelsea, and there seems no chance of a reconciliation. Katharina, 49, the daughter of German naval officer Rear-Admiral Diether Hülsemann, married Cadogan in 1990, and they have three children together: Philippa, 24, George, 20, and Charles, 17.
A friend of the couple confirms: ‘It is very sad, they are no longer living together.’ The source adds: ‘Given his wealth, I wonder how much she is looking for?’
The London property boom rocketed the value of the 93-acre Cadogan estate from £4.8 billion to £5.2 billion over the last year.
The aristocratic family has a further £ 500 million in cash and other investments, taking their fortune to an eye-watering £5.7 billion, up from £4.8 billion in 2015.
Both Viscount and Lady Chelsea tell me they have no comment to make on the private matter.
But Lord Cadogan’s thricemarried father, the 79-year-old eighth Earl Cadogan, has form in the marital stakes.
In 1994, he annulled his second marriage, to former caterer Jenny Rae, before marrying his third — and current — wife Dorothy, a former hospital matron, just five days later.
It took Jenny, now happily married to industrialist Alan Taylor, eight years of wranglings with the Earl before she was awarded a settlement of £1million, plus a £750,000 country house.
But friends suggest Katharina will seek a more generous settlement, thanks to her landowning spouse’s escalating fortune.
Boom and bust, indeed.