Man ordered to pay wife £72.3 million in divorce settlement

Updated
Randy Work divorce hearing
Randy Work divorce hearing



A highly successful businessman from the United States is to pay the wife he is divorcing £72.3 million.

The figure was announced by a High Court Family Division judge today after what he described as a "very bruising and painful" two-week hearing in the Family Division of London's High Court.

Randy Work, a former key executive in Texas-based private equity company Lone Star, argued in court that wife Mandy Gray, 45, was only entitled to £5m after she failed to keep to the terms of a post-nuptial agreement.

The stance of Mr Work led a judge to tell the 47-year-old husband: "I am not sure you and I are on the same planet."

Mr Justice Holman, sitting in London, also rejected Mr Work's suggestion that in any event he was entitled to more than his wife because of his "special contribution" to the marriage and making the couple rich through his exceptional business skills.

The judge told him: "It would, in my view, be unsatisfactory and gender discriminatory now to make an unequal award."

In the witness box, Mr Work described how he had gone to Japan and made billions of dollars for Lone Star - and millions for himself - buying up real estate, including troubled golf courses, after the Japanese economy became stuck in a sharp downturn.

He told the judge that Ms Gray had been "a good wife" over 20 years and "a good mother" and would have been entitled to at least 70 million US dollars, the "total sum payable" under the post-nup agreement they signed in October 2000.

But he argued that she was not entitled to any of his money, or any of his property, after she came to court to seek a better settlement.

He argued she was only entitled to £5m deemed to be her own separate property, an amount expected to fall to just over £3m when bills are paid.

But Mr Justice Holman, sitting in London, disagreed and told him: "Having offered to pay her nothing you now have to pay her tens of millions of (US) dollars."

After further argument in court over the figures, the judge said the total the amount the wife was to receive in two lump sums would be 109,251,416 US dollars - £72.3m.The court heard in a case expected to cost around £3m in legal costs that both Mr Work and Ms Gray were born in the US. Both had given up US citizenship and were now resident in London.

The judge said the couple had been equal partners in a relationship of more than 20 years.

They married "without a bean" and the husband made his fortune during the course of their marriage while supported by his wife.

They began living together in 1992 and married in California in 1995. They separated in 2013 and have two children, now aged 15 and 12.

The court was told that Mr Work was "the breadwinner" and Ms Gray "the homemaker".

In 1997 he was offered a job with Lone Star in Dallas, Texas, and soon afterwards he was offered a post in Tokyo, where the couple lived from 1998 until 2005.

They moved to the UK in 2008 and their matrimonial home has been in London ever since.

The marriage fell apart in 2013 when Ms Gray began an affair with the couple's physiotherapist, referred to as "Mr H".

Ms Gray moved to a flat in Kensington to live with her lover.

The judge said Mr Work was "very shocked and very hurt by his wife's infidelity and affair" and it also caused considerable upset to the couple's two children.

Ms Gray told the court that the post-nup was part of the move to separate their assets when her husband first decided to give up his US citizenship to save tax in America.

Mr Work, described in court as a world-class triathlete, denied that was true.

It was agreed in court that the first tranche of the lump sum, amounting to 60 million US dollars, should be paid by to Ms Gray within 28 days and the balance by August.



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