Harold Hamm was ordered by an Oklahoma
County judge to hand over close to $1 billion to his ex-wife Sue Ann
Hamm (pictured), according to court filings released on Monday
An oil tycoon has been ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in a divorce settlement to his wife, making it one of the biggest payouts in history.
Continental
Resources CEO Harold Hamm was ordered by an Oklahoma County judge to
hand over close to $1 billion to his ex-wife Sue Ann Hamm, according to a
court filing made public on Monday.
Special
Judge Howard Haralson found that Hamm, 68, should pay Mrs Hamm a total
of $995.5 million, with about a third of the funds, or $322.7 million,
to be paid by the end of the year, the filing revealed.
Forbes named the oil tycoon the 30th
richest person in the U.S. in 2012 and 76th richest person in the world.
His fortune is estimated at $14billion today
Hamm
will then be required to pay the rest of the judgment, some $650
million, in installments worth at least $7 million per month.
Sue Ann Hamm has already been awarded around $25 million since the case was filed in 2012.
To secure the judgment, Judge Haralson has placed a lien on 20 million shares of Continental stock.
The ruling, which is subject to appeal, comes after a ten-week divorce trial which ended last month.
Hamm started Continental in 1967, and about 68 per cent of the firm's shares are in his name.
His stake was worth more than $18 billion when the trial started in August. It's worth around $14 billion today.
Since
the couple wed in 1988, Continental has grown from a small-time driller
worth less than $50 million into a $20 billion behemoth and one of
Oklahoma's largest companies.
Because Harold owned his shares before he and Sue Ann were married, they belong to him.
But
under Oklahoma law, their 'active' appreciation since 1988 is subject
to 'equitable distribution' with Sue Ann, a former executive at
Continental who filed for divorce from Harold in 2012.
Her
legal team contends that the amount of marital wealth the court should
divide is more than $17 billion, a sum that included most of Harold's
stake in Continental a few months before the trial began.
In a court filing from 2013, Mrs Hamm alleged that her husband was having an affair, which prompted her to file for divorce.
Mrs Hamm, 56, has held key posts at Continental, but she no longer works for the company.
Court
filings showed that his attorneys argued that the couple's shared
wealth is a tiny fraction of that amount. The couple never signed a
prenuptial agreement.
Harold Hamm's leadership at Continental is central to the case.
The Hamms own four houses together including this vast property in an exclusive enclave of Nichols Hills, Oklahoma
High-life: Sue Ann Hamm and the
couple's daughter Jane are pictured at a lunch for the Wall Street
Journal Innovator of Year award
In
court, his lawyers attributed most of Continental's success not to
Hamm's business savvy but to factors beyond his control - that market
factors such as rising oil prices, or decisions made prior to marriage
caused Continental's growth.
The trial ended on October 9.
This is the second divorce for Hamm after he divorced his first wife, Judith Ann, in 1987. They have three children together.
In 1988, Hamm married Sue Ann, an economist and lawyer. The couple had two daughters, Jane and Hillary.
The oil magnate lives in Oklahoma City and owns homes in Enid, Oklahoma and Nichols Hills, Oklahoma.
The vast Nichols Hills property is believed to be worth in the region of $3million.
Harold Hamm pictured with Mitt Romney
during his run for the White House. The oil tycoon donated close to
$1million to the Republican candidate's campaign
Forbes named him the 30th richest person in the U.S. in 2012 and 76th richest person in the world.
He had humble beginnings, growing up in rural Oklahoma where he was the 13th child of Oklahoma cotton sharecroppers.
Mr
Hamm spent his youth picking cotton, before starting his career at 20
by scrubbing the scum out of oil barrels. He worked his way up and was
eventually able to drill his own wells.
Fond of eating at burger bars, Mr Hamm has a reputation for being down-to-earth and drives his own truck.
His
big breakthrough came in the Nineties, when he helped discover the
Bakken field of North Dakota, the largest new US oil prospect since the
Sixties.
Mr Hamm is a staunch Republican and donated close to a million dollars to Mitt Romney's presidential bid in 2012.
Hamm leaves after he made a quick visit to the humble home (right) where he'd lived in as a boy in Lexington, Oklahoma
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