Hohn’s Ex-Wife Gets Record $530 Million in Divorce Case

By Andrea Gerlin

Photographer: Andrew Cowie/AFP via Getty Images

Jamie Cooper-Hohn, the ex-wife of Children’s Investment Fund Management UK LLP founder... Read More

Jamie Cooper-Hohn, the ex-wife of Children’s Investment Fund Management UK LLP founder Chris Hohn, is to receive $530 million of the couple’s marital assets, her lawyer said in a London court yesterday.
The award is less than the 50 percent portion of the $1.3 billion in assets that Cooper-Hohn had been seeking. Chris Hohn had requested as much as 75 percent of the estate, arguing that he had made a “special contribution” to the family’s wealth. Judge Jennifer Roberts, who will release her ruling next month, didn’t explain the reasons for the amounts.
Cooper-Hohn’s share of the estate includes a share of a pension, a house in Connecticut and about $493 million in cash, her lawyer, Martin Pointer said in court, quoting from the decision distributed to the parties.
Roberts has said the case is the largest to reach London -- which has
been called the “divorce capital” of Europe because of large awards to non-working spouses.
The judge gave Cooper-Hohn 21 days to decide whether to appeal. She also said the full ruling would be released on Dec. 12 and she would hold another hearing in January to consider any remaining issues in the case.
Hohn, 48, is known for his activist investing, buying stakes in companies and pressuring management to make changes that might drive up the share price. After investing in European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., TCI pushed the airplane manufacturer to sell its 46 percent stake in Paris-based Dassault Aviation SA (AM) last year and give the proceeds to shareholders. The fund has about $8 billion in assets under management, according to court documents.

Family Charity

The couple have given away most of their fortune to a charity, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, which they established. Cooper-Hohn, 49, was its unpaid chief executive officer until last year.
Pointer said Cooper-Hohn still has to decide whether she wants to challenge the division of assets. She hasn’t had the opportunity to consider the implications of the judge’s ruling, he said, because she’s had to defend against allegations she engaged in “criminal activity” and breached her fiduciary duty to the family charity, which her ex-husband made against her and her lawyers at a hearing in October.
Those accusations were “utterly groundless,” Pointer said. “It is to her husband’s discredit that these allegations were ever made.”

Move On

Hohn’s lawyer, Lewis Marks, said in court that Hohn is eager to resolve the divorce, though he believes he has grounds for an appeal and would lodge one if his ex-wife does.
“We’re very anxious to move on,” Marks said.
Lawyers for the couple sparred over payments of smaller sums. Pointer said Hohn had delayed making a $10 million payment to Cooper-Hohn and also accused him of failing to make a payment for rent on a house for her and the couple’s children on time.
“We regard this as part of a campaign, putting her under pressure in relation to the trust,” Pointer said. “He’s putting her under pressure financially.”
Marks said Hohn had paid the rent and would pay the $10 million, although he said he was waiting for Cooper-Hohn to sign a document.

Indemnity

“My client cannot hand over such a large sum of money while the wife has refused to sign an indemnity,” Marks said.
The charity, known as CIFF, fights child poverty in developing countries, mostly in India and Africa. CIFF has in the past received a third of TCI’s 1.5 percent management fee and 0.5 percent of profits over 11 percent.
Hohn, who was honored by the queen in June for his philanthropic work, has generated wealth of about $5.7 billion in his working life, including $4.3 billion for the charity, Cooper-Hohn’s lawyer said in a court hearing before the trial.
He’s been asked to speak on malnutrition by Prime Minister David Cameron and meets with Bill Gates “regularly every year,” to discuss philanthropy.
“My life isn’t dedicated to making money,” he said in court earlier this year.

Swatch Lifestyle

The couple, who married in 1995, have four children, including triplets. Neither had much money before their marriage, they both testified. The judge used a timepiece as a metaphor for the couple’s standard of living, saying July 1 that they lived a “Swatch lifestyle.”
Legal rulings in the case restricted reporting of details about the children and the couple’s finances that weren’t already in the public domain. Some details of their finances were discussed in a court of appeal ruling on June 18. Yesterday’s hearing was public.
The case is Cooper-Hohn v. Hohn, case no. 12-1549, U.K. High Court of Justice, Family Division.