A financier’s wife has been awarded £337 million in what could be Britain’s biggest ever divorce settlement ,but her legal team says she may appeal for more.
Sir Chris Hohn has been told to hand over the sum following the collapse of his 15-year marriage to Jamie Cooper-Hohn.Sir Chris’s representatives told the court they were anxious to ‘move on with things [but the] wife is not’.Sir Chris, who was born in Addlestone, Surrey, met his American wife, 49, when the pair studied at Harvard Business School.
She told an earlier hearing that she initially spurned his advances, but the pair later bonded over the film Malcolm X.
They married in Washington DC in 1995 and had four children – triplets, now aged 12, and an older child of 15.They split up in December 2012, with Mrs Cooper-Hohn divorcing Sir Chris in April 2013
Mrs Cooper-Hohn said she should get half of the couple’s fortune because the wealth was created as a result of their ‘partnership’. Sir Chris said she should receive a quarter.
Mrs Cooper-Hohn claimed their joint assets were around £849 million – and added that her ex-husband was worth at least £872 million from personal assets and his hedge fund, for a combined total of £1.72billion. She said:
‘When Chris and I first met, I asked him what he wanted to do. He said “I don’t mind as long as Imake a lot of money”.’
However, Sir Chris,claimed he is worth a mere £67 million.He said
I learned very early on that you can’t take money with you and that it doesn’t bring happiness. The basis for my claim [to retain 75 per cent of the disputed fortune] is that I have created all the wealth through expertise, effort and sweat and blood.’