The $1 Billion Divorce: Harold Hamm Ordered To Give Wife A Fortune In Divorce Settlement

Breaking up is hard to do, and it’s probably a billion times harder when there’s a $16 billion oil fortune on the line. Oklahoma billionaire Harold Hamm is finding out just how hard now, as a court told him that he will have to cough up nearly $1 billion to finalize his divorce from wife Sue Ann. Oddly enough, Harold’s team thinks they got out of this one cheap.

Harold Hamm, 68, was ordered to pay $972 million out of his $16.1 billion fortune to his soon-to-be ex-wife Sue Ann Hamm, but he was allowed to keep the vast majority of his 68 percent stake in Continental Resources Inc., a top oil producer in Oklahoma. The nearly $1 billion settlement comes at the end of a years-long divorce proceeding that began with Sue Ann Hamm filing for divorce in 2012.

Last year, Heavy reported on the Hamm divorce, noting that there was no prenuptial agreement signed before the Hamms tied the knot. That means that Harold Hamm really got off cheap, as there could have been no ceiling on just what Sue Ann could have walked away with.

Heavy‘s report also pointed to Sue Ann having been monitoring Harold electronically for quite some time under suspicion of infidelity.

The couple stipulated a “state of mutual irreconcilable incompatibility” in 2013, according to Bloomberg, and a 10-week trial in Oklahoma City was necessary to sort out their financial differences.

What “financial differences?” Well, with a $16.1 billion fortune on the line, there were probably quite a few haggling points. There was the issue of the division of property, and Sue Ann Hamm was awarded the couple’s $4.7 million home in Nichols Hills, Oklahoma, as well as their $15 million ranch in California’s Camel Valley. Sue Ann also got ownership of all of the livestock on the Hamms’ ranch, with the exception of two horses, Star and Uno.

Hamm has three days to move the horses.

In addition to keeping $15 billion, Hamm gets to hold onto the couple’s $750,000 home in Branson, Missouri, a $10 million jet, and $1.9 billion more in marital assets than his wife. That’s not even the part where Hamm’s team thinks he got out of this cheap.

Harold and Sue Ann Hamm had been married for 26-years. Hamm already owned Continental Resources before he married Sue Ann, but divorce experts say that she should have been able to come away with a much bigger slice of the pie.

“While a billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at,” one divorce attorney told Bloomberg, “Harold Hamm and his attorneys left the courtroom very well aware that they had scored a very huge victory.”

That attorney noted that a billionaire’s spouse of several decades would typically expect to come away with between 25 and 30 percent of the marital assets. That would have come to between $4.25 and $5.1 billion.

It’s not all said and done, though. Some attorneys are expecting an appeal, with Sue Ann Hamm pushing for even more money.

If Sue Ann doesn’t appeal, though, she can expect to get a lump sum payment of $323 million by the end of this year. After that, she’ll receive $7 million per month until the balance she is owed is paid off.

[Lead image via Heavy.]