The estranged wife of Michael Fuchs, the co-owner of Manhattan’s Chrysler Building, should get as much as £37.5 million ($44.1 million), according to a ruling in a bitter London divorce dispute.
Fuchs’s second wife Alvina Collardeau-Fuchs is entitled to the funds, made up of cash and assets, as part of a pre-nuptial agreement which was bitterly disputed by the couple. Fuchs must also make payments of £23,100 for each of their two children per month until they are adults, plus school fees and as much as £100,000 a year for nannies.
This money gives Collardeau-Fuchs a “clean break” from the property tycoon, Judge Nicholas Mostyn said in a written ruling made public Monday. “This is a case of the super-rich who—as I stated in my previous judgment quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald—are truly different to you and me.”
Fuchs, co-founder with Aby Rosen of New York property group RFR Holding LLC, married Collardeau-Fuchs in New York in 2012, and the family moved to London some four years later. The couple lived a “billionaire lifestyle” during their marriage with five fully staffed homes in fashionable areas including the Hamptons, Cap d’Antibes, and Capri, according to the ruling.
However, Fuchs said during the hearings that he was no longer a billionaire and his net worth had “plummeted recently due to the turbulent economic climate,” according to court documents. Fuchs said during the hearing that his net worth is now $600 million to $800 million compared with his estimates of $1.73 billion in June 2021.
London’s family courts have become a popular destination for high-value legal fights, with judges typically prepared to order a more equal share of a couple’s assets. Earlier, Fuchs has accused his wife of greed while she accused him of seeking to control her spending to make life “intolerable.”
As part of their acrimonious fight, Collardeau-Fuchs alleged during the proceedings that she did not consent to a remortgage of one of their homes and some of her signatures on critical documents were not made by her. Judge Mostyn said that “there was a practice within this family of proxies signing documents on behalf of the principals.” Although, according to the judgment, he noted the wife was aware of this and he did not make any findings of falsification against Fuchs.
Fuchs and Collardeau-Fuchs are estimated to have spent more than £8 million on their legal costs. Mostyn said that the amount spent in such a short period must be a record.
Lawyers for Fuchs and Collardeau-Fuchs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
