How the Bezos divorce could impact Amazon shareholders

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced Wednesday their plan to divorce. What this will mean for his businesses?

Jeff Bezos is best known for founding Amazon, and he's still the company's largest shareholder by far, owning 16.3 percent of its shares according to the company's 2018 proxy statement. He also founded space company Blue Origin and bought The Washington Post during the course of his 25-year marriage to MacKenzie.

Washington state, where Amazon is headquartered and the Bezoses have a home, is a "community property" state under state law. That means, if the couple files for divorce there, all assets and debts accrued during their marriage will be considered owned by both husband and wife. The law dictates that these assets be equitably divided unless a prenuptial agreement states otherwise. It's not known whether the couple has any such agreement in place.

But in the Bezoses' case, where Jeff has a net worth of $137 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, the court will probably divide the money evenly.
The experts things that could not think of another situation where a founder of such an influential company divorced a spouse who had been with them since the company's founding.

Typically, CEOs could avoid splitting up their shares by leaving other assets to their spouses, such as real estate and other property. But for the Bezoses, Neyland said, "all the wealth is going to be tied up in Amazon. In this case, I don't know, of course, what to think of something of this magnitude, but I imagine his spouse is going to get some amount of stock in Amazon. So this is going to change the ownership in Amazon."

This could mean Amazon may need to find a new structure to ensure that Jeff Bezos still owns enough voting power with his shares, Neyland said, like creating different classes of shares with varied amounts of voting power.

Shareholders may also worry about the Amazon CEO's state of mind as he goes through a difficult personal situation. People who see their net worth go down significantly may be less willing to bet on risky innovation.

Source: CNBC

Read more:

• In the space of two weeks, he turned 800$ investment into $350 mln.
• 11 things to give up if you want to be a millionaire
• If your friends don’t talk about money, you need new friends
• The bizarre ritual traders followed on Friday the 13th to scare away evil spirits
• Forex Guru Path: Mindfulness, Morning Routine and Trading at your sharpest is common sense.