Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has settled his bitter divorce with his wife of 11 years in an eleventh-hour deal before the start of a bruising court battle.
Griffin — the founder of Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel who is worth $6.9 billion and, according to court filings, earns $100 million a month — settled with his wife, Anne Dias-Griffin, with whom he has three kids, late Tuesday.
The couple were due in a Chicago court Wednesday morning for the start of what was being billed as the “hedge fund divorce trial of the century,” to fight over the validity of their prenuptial agreement.
But a Cook County judge’s spokesman said Wednesday morning, “Yesterday we were informed that the parties came to an agreement. They settled the case. The divorce was finalized and a judgment for dissolution of marriage was entered.”
The size of the settlement is “confidential,” according to sources who said both sides negotiated late into Tuesday night to hammer out a deal.
The prenup entitles Dias-Griffin to $1 million for each year they were married, plus a $22.5 million payment. But sources said her total payout could easily exceed $200 million. Power attorney William D. Zabel, who’s not involved in the case, added, “This, as in many cases, was settled on the courthouse steps because neither side wants the risk of losing.”
The divorce trial was set to be explosive because of the wealth and lavish lifestyle of the couple. Dias-Griffin was asking for child support of $1 million a month based on the family’s previous spending. Griffin — who Page Six revealed just purchased a record $220 million penthouse at the so-called “billionaire’s bunker” at 220 Central Park South — argued she had already received $40 million under their prenup. The hearing was expected to drag on for at least three months.
They were also battling over custody of their three kids because Dias-Griffin wants to move from Chicago to New York, where she was a former Goldman exec and ran her own hedge fund, Aragon, before they married in 2003.
Reps for both Griffin and Dias-Griffin could not immediately be reached.