Hindsight is 20/20 — especially when hindsight is worth $38 billion.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott, his first wife, got married without a prenup (in 1993, before Bezos started Amazon). Scott received roughly $38 billion in Amazon shares in the settlement, making her one of the world’s richest women.
On Friday, Bezos got married again, this time to helicopter pilot and former journalist Lauren Sánchez. Experts in family law and wealth management told Business Insider that the couple is almost certain to have a complex prenup. Bezos is, after all, worth more than $200 billion today.
A representative for Bezos didn’t respond to a request for comment from BI about whether the couple has a prenup.
Prenups for ultra-high net worth couples involve many parties
Anne Paape, the managing director and head of wealth strategy at Cresset Capital, a multi-family office for entrepreneurs and multi-generational families of wealth, said prenups are generally becoming more common and are sometimes even mandated in family trusts for the ultrawealthy.
Prenups begin with both people fully disclosing their financial assets and debts, she said. Besides family, they can also involve everyone from business partners and tax attorneys to luxury realtors and aviation experts who help appraise homes and private jets, said Brooke Summerhill, a divorce financial consultant who primarily works with ultra-high net worth clients.
“It’s not the clients making a lot of these decisions, it’s their team helping them understand what those decisions are and making those decisions with them,” she told BI.
Paape doesn’t know the details of Bezos’ potential prenup but said his situation isn’t entirely unique: Many superrich weddings mark second or third marriages for at least one spouse, often one whose assets have changed considerably since their first time tying the knot.
“He will absolutely have protection against anything that he could,” Summerhill said, adding that he likely won’t let his pre-marriage assets co-mingle with Sánchez’s assets.
Business control and property ownership can get complicated
The more money you have, the more potential prenup headaches you’ll have, especially when it comes to business interests and properties.
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Wealthy clients tend to have properties and business interests around the globe, making it harder to ensure compliance with divorce and death laws in various jurisdictions.
Many entrepreneurs like Bezos are focused on insulating their businesses in the event of a divorce or death. Most don’t want to risk giving an ex-partner enough stock to have a say in how the company runs, Paape told BI.
“You could try to compensate for keeping that off the table,” Paape said. “What else if you were to get divorced? What other resources could you provide to that person?”
Clauses safeguarding the appreciation of assets during a marriage are also key for wealthy clients, Summerhill said.
What happens if there’s a divorce or death?
If the couple ever divorces, it’s not unlikely that Sánchez would get a lump sum, Amazon shares, and some real estate, according to Summerhill and Raymond Hekmat, a family law attorney in Beverly Hills who primarily writes prenups.
But a marriage can also end in death, and that’s where a death clause can come in. As Summerhill put it, this “prevents the surviving spouse from claiming a bigger portion of that deceased person’s separate property.”
A surviving spouse commonly receives a lump sum or life insurance payout upon their spouse’s death, she said, but a last will and testament may take precedent over the prenup.
Dealing with inheritance
Prenups for the ultrawealthy have repercussions beyond the couple, whether it’s about who takes over the family empire or gets the keys to the Hamptons home.
“There’s more people that care about the resolution of that breakup, whether it’s divorce or death,” Paape said. “It’s business partners, it’s employees, it’s charities you support, it’s children and grandchildren.”
She said trusts “are a no-brainer ” for children of the ultrarich and that many provisions deal with inherited property or business ownership.
Bezos shares four children with Scott, and Sánchez has three kids.
Prenups are private, but aren’t always forever
Hekmat said all the prenups he draws up have a confidentiality provision, and some can include social media restrictions.
“In the event of a breakup, you can’t disparage the other party or discuss the prenup in any way with the public, and there could be penalties involved,” he said.
Prenups can also include sunset clauses, which say that some provisions or even the full agreement expires after a certain period of time. Some people may choose to change certain provisions and become more generous after they’ve been with their spouse for a while, Paape said.
Hekmat said that even with prenups, couples risk messy legal and financial fights down the line. Proclaimed love and devotion aside, he kept his advice for the Bezoses of the world simple.
“My bottom line for billionaires is don’t get married.”
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