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MacKenzie Bezos Could Become World’s Richest Woman With Divorce

MacKenzie Bezos’s divorce from Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos could make her the world’s richest woman.

MacKenzie Bezos Could Become World’s Richest Woman With Divorce
File photo of Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc., and his wife MacKenzie Bezos (Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- MacKenzie Bezos’s divorce from Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos could make her the world’s richest woman.

MacKenzie Bezos Could Become World’s Richest Woman With Divorce

As of now, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the granddaughter of the founder of cosmetics manufacturer L’Oreal SA, is the richest woman in the world, with a net worth of $45.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.

Neither the Bezoses nor Amazon have commented on the likely division of the couple’s assets, including a 16 percent stake in the company. But without an agreement stipulating otherwise, their wealth would almost certainly be divided equally, according to Karin Lundell, a partner at law firm Rower LLC in New York.

MacKenzie Bezos Could Become World’s Richest Woman With Divorce

With $137.2 billion, Jeff is the world’s richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index; an even split would make MacKenzie, an author, the richest woman with about $69 billion. But even if she receives as little as 1 percent of the fortune, she’d still join the three-comma club.

Most of the 66 women on the Bloomberg index came into their wealth through death or divorce. There are only six self-made women on the list, compared with 313 self-made men.

The Bezoses announced their breakup Wednesday in a tweet signed by both spouses.

--With assistance from Ben Steverman.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sophie Alexander in New York at salexander82@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, ;Janet Paskin at jpaskin@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum

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