It’s been less than three months since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife announced that they were divorcing. As we noted on this blog, the announcement caused some nervousness among Amazon shareholders and people who work for his many other business enterprises.
However, despite the huge amount of assets at stake (some $130 billion), Bezos and his wife MacKenzie appear to be settling their divorce as amicably as they announced it in a joint statement on social media. In separate statements on Twitter this month, they announced some significant agreements in their divorce settlement.
Mrs. Bezos said that her husband will keep 75 percent of the couple’s Amazon stock as well as voting power for all of the couple’s shares. She is keeping 4 percent of the 16 percent of the company that the couple has owned together. That 4 percent will make the 48-year-old one of the wealthiest woman in the world.
She also noted in her tweet that she was “[h]appy to be giving him all of my shares in the Washington Post and Blue Origin.” The latter is the aerospace company located in Van Horn, Texas.
A regulatory filing by Amazon earlier this month estimated that the divorce would be settled in 90 days. This and the couple’s mutually supportive tweets seem to have left shareholders of the behemoth online retailer feeling calm. There was little change in the stock price after they were posted.
Many issues around the couple’s divorce, however, haven’t been publicly addressed. It still isn’t known even whether they had a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. They also haven’t disclosed how they will share custody of their four children.
As the Bezoses have shown, high-asset divorces don’t have to be acrimonious. If couples can work together, with the help of their attorneys, to reach a settlement that they both agree is fair, they can save considerable time, money and stress and move forward with the next phase of their lives.