Rising to Global Billionaire Status Through Asset Division Alone... The Most Expensive Divorce of the Century [News SeolCham]

(42)Common Divorces... Interest in 'Property Division' Grows
Property Division Scale Determined Considering Contribution to Joint Property
Bill Gates Estimated to Pay About 105 Trillion Won to Ex-Wife

Editor's Note'Seolcham' is a newly coined term meaning to refer to detailed explanations. In [News Seolcham], we aim to pinpoint and explain in more detail the parts of the news that require fact-checking or further explanation.

In an era where one out of every two couples chooses divorce, divorce has become common. Interest in the scale of property division among celebrities is also increasing. The divorce issues of SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Noh So-young, director of Art Center Nabi, as well as football player Kim Min-jae (Bayern Munich) and his ex-wife Ahn, drew significant attention due to the scale of property division involved.

The appellate court ruling on the property division between Chairman Chey and Director Noh is considered the largest amount in South Korea. On May 30, the appellate court ordered Chairman Chey to pay Director Noh 1.3808 trillion KRW in property division and 2 billion KRW in alimony. This is about 20 times the amount recognized in the first trial, which was 66.5 billion KRW for property division and 100 million KRW for alimony. However, Chairman Chey filed an appeal against the property division ruling in June, and the case is now pending review by the Supreme Court.

The previous record for the highest amount was in 2004 when Kim Taek-jin, CEO of NCSoft, paid his ex-wife 1.76% of NCSoft shares (356,461 shares) as property division. At that time, the market value was approximately 30 billion KRW. Another famous case is the divorce between Lee Boo-jin, President of Hotel Shilla, and Lim Woo-jae, former Samsung Electro-Mechanics advisor, finalized around January 2020. Initially, Lim reportedly demanded property division worth about 1 trillion KRW, roughly half of Lee's total assets, but the Supreme Court ruled that Lee, who has custody and parental rights of their children, should pay Lim 14.113 billion KRW in property division.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

In the amicably settled divorce of Kim Min-jae, the specific amount of property division was not disclosed. During their four years of marriage, Kim's income from salary alone reached 32.1 billion KRW annually, and when including advertising, bonuses, and sponsorship income, his total earnings are believed to be even higher.

Generally, when determining property division, the contributions of each spouse to the formation of assets during the marriage are considered regardless of fault. When dividing jointly acquired property, not only income earned through economic activities but also support activities such as household labor and childcare are taken into account. Future income such as retirement pay and pensions, as well as savings and deposits, are also subject to property division.

Global billionaires with larger asset sizes than those in Korea have even larger property division amounts. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft (MS), and Melinda French Gates, former chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ended their 27-year marriage in August 2021. At that time, Bill Gates was the world's fourth richest person with assets worth $145 billion (approximately 200 trillion KRW), including cash, stocks, real estate, and art, all subject to property division.

The detailed terms of their property division agreement were not disclosed, but considering Washington state's court principle of a 50-50 split in divorce, it is estimated that Melinda Gates received $76 billion, equivalent to about 104.8 trillion KRW. Melinda co-founded and operated the foundation with Bill Gates since 2000.

Novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott became famous for rising in the global billionaire rankings after divorcing Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. They divorced in January 2019, and Bezos reportedly paid Scott approximately $38 billion (about 52.4 trillion KRW) in Amazon shares (25%) and alimony. Following this, Scott quickly rose to 18th place in the 2019 global billionaire rankings.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, divorced Nicole Shanahan in September last year after 4 years and 6 months of marriage. Shanahan is a lawyer and entrepreneur active mainly in Silicon Valley. Although specific details of their property division agreement were not disclosed, Forbes reported that Shanahan's wealth increased by at least $360 million (about 500 billion KRW) and up to $1 billion (about 1.3 trillion KRW) after the divorce.