Money Can't buy love....The Ken Griffin Divorce…and the Right Way to Do a Prenup - 

Copied from above article on WSJ...."Hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin and his wife, Anne Dias Griffin, appear headed to court in a fight over the validity of a prenuptial agreement signed on the eve of their 2003 wedding.

Reports say 'Mrs. Griffin filed documents in court in Illinois this week challenging the prenup, saying it was signed under duress. Mr. Griffin, who filed for divorce in July, reportedly didn’t disclose his financial information until days before the ceremony, and she signed the prenup three hours before a rehearsal dinner on the night before their July 19, 2003, wedding.'

At stake is Mr. Griffin’s reported $5 billion fortune. If the prenup remains in place, Mrs. Griffin would get roughly 1% of that, or $50 million. If it doesn’t, she could get substantially more. Mr. Griffin’s Chicago-based Citadel LLC is one of the largest firms in the hedge-fund industry, with about $21 billion under management. About one fourth of that amount belongs to Mr. Griffin or his employees, according to a person familiar with the matter."

Do you think Anne Dias Griffin should be awarded $$ because her marriage didn't work out with Mr. Griffin? If the shoe were on the other foot and her hedge fund had been worth  a $5 billion fortune, should Mr. Griffin be entitled to his $$ if the marriage didn't work out? What is this idea where marriage can be a path to fortune? There's no simple way to split up a marriage especially when children are involved but adding to that pain and trouble (especially for the children) is when one of the partners has a bundle of cash going into the marriage and the other partner wants to continue in the life style they've became accustomed too and is asking for the prenup to be thrown out.  

What a way to start a loving relationship. Does anyone believe they met and it was a rare occasion where they fell in love without either of them knowing the financial background of the other person. Anne Dias before she and Ken Griffin married ran her own hedge fund, Aragon Global Management LLC in Chicago, an investment firm she started in 2001 with backing from hedge-fund manager Julian Robertson. The firm returned money to clients in 2009, having managed $200 million in assets at its peak. 

One would wonder if Mrs. Griffin carefully thought this out before tying the knot. I know nothing of Mrs. Griffin except what I read in the WSJ regarding her challenge to the prenup that she signed the day of their marriage. Which apparently has no standing in the state of California where prenups aren’t enforceable if there aren’t at least seven days between their being presented to the parties and the actual signing. They were not married in California but in Paris, and Bloomberg reported they have not lived together since 2012. (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-03/kenneth-griffin-s-wife-seeks-child-custody-amid-divorce.html). According to Mrs. Griffin, Mr. Griffin carefully thought out his union with her saying she signed the agreement on the advice of a psychologist “under the guise of a counseling session.” Kenneth Griffin recommended the psychologist and didn’t disclose that he had a “fiduciary relationship” with the person, according to her divorce filing.

Divorce is a complicated issue and resolutions to "splitting up" has a rich and barbaric history. European royalty could simply do away with they're spouses when they tired of them. England's King Henry VIII was a notorious husband, and he wasn't much better as a fiancé.  Henry was reportedly out hunting on the day his second wife Anne Boleyn was beheaded. He rushed to Jane Seymour to share the good news. They were married the next day. And while the wedding was a relatively private ceremony, there were preparations to be made, invitations to be sent, cakes to be baked. All must have occurred even as Boleyn was still alive in the Tower of London. This is clearly an exceedingly brutal example and in this day and age what we've became accustomed to in our modern view of fairness and individual rights has grown out of years of  trial and error. 

Did Mr. Griffin realize if he married Ms. Dias at the Palace of Versailles in Paris that he might be viewed as having the rights of the earlier royalty? Ah psshaw, forget about prenups, off with her head, I'll take the children and continue my lifestyle- MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Still, I can't help but think no matter the virtues as well as flaws of either of the Griffins or what their reasons for splitting happened to be, will money be the answer? Perhaps Mrs. Griffin thinks so and feels she and their children are entitled.

So what of this trend of marriage and divorce and how will it change our demographics in the future? 

According to Wikipedia "In 2005, divorce rates were four times the divorce rates in 1955, and a quarter of children less than 16 years old are raised by a stepparent, according to one source.[9] Marriages that end in divorce last for a median of 8 years for both men and women.[10]"

According to Wikipedia "In 2008 a report was taken out by major research foundations including The Young Foundation (UK),The Bertelsmann Foundation (DE), The European Center for Social Welfare Policy and Research (EU), and other foundations around the world. These foundations combined their own research to show what to expect families to look like in the next twenty years or so.[30] These factors included:

21st century fertility rates

In industrialized countries, such as the United States, fertility rates have been lower than non-industrialized countries. Women have had children later in life, which has resulted in fewer births per woman. With a higher percentage of women in the work force, more women have diverted their attention away from establishing a family.[30] This has led to speculation that, in the next 20 years, the native U.S. population is not going to increase as fast as it did in the 20th century. Despite increased longevity, the number of members per family is not projected to increase.[30]

Immigration

As of 2006, roughly 12%-14% of the U.S. population was foreign born. This is attributed to immigration from nearby countries and around the world.[30]

Future marriages and families in the United States

With increased longevity, more great grandparents and great grandchildren are anticipated. For the married couple this can either mean more sources of sibling, kin, and parental support or more stress from having to take care of more elderly and young family members—yet there will be fewer siblings within the family. Due to a constant flow of immigration, both legal and illegal, marriages can be projected to be more interracial and culturally diverse, which would lead to the majority white culture becoming the largest minority, leaving behind a more diverse population than currently present in the United States.[30]

A crown's no cure for a headache.

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And the Griffin's .... I have to agree with one of the Bloomberg commenter (Navin) who states "If she (Anne Griffin)  is claiming she did not have her Prenup reviewed by an Independent Legal Counsel, she is dumb as door nails or extremely smart. The latter may be the case here

Having said that, with her exceedingly superior work experience with blue chip Hedge funds etc it is also unlikely that she did not herself have the capacity to review the agreement and understand is troublesome.

If she did not have an Independent Legal Counsel Review her prenup then Ken is the real IDIOT! At a minimum a DRAFTER of Prenup would force a client to ensure that the new spouse has an Independent Legal Counsel but that counsel sign off on the prenup in clear and convincing manner.

As usual everything coming out of Chicago is a mystery - nowadays!

I can totally see this divorce blowing up Citadel!"