“Greed, not need:” RFR’s Fuchs slams wife’s $50M settlement demand

Divorce battle centered on pre-nuptial agreement, couple’s properties

From left: RFR Realty's Michael Fuchs and Alvina Collardeau-Fuchs
From left: RFR Realty's Michael Fuchs and Alvina Collardeau-Fuchs (Getty)

The bitter divorce proceedings between RFR Realty principal Michael Fuchs and his estranged wife are still on across the pond.

The billionaire Chrysler Building co-owner hit back at Alvina Collardeau-Fuchs’ claim that she’s grown accustomed to a lavish lifestyle during their eight-year marriage, according to a London court filing reported by Bloomberg. Fuchs responded to her request for £45 million ($50 million) settlement, calling it “greed, not need.”

In happier times, the couple enjoyed five fully staffed homes in London’s Notting Hill, Manhattan’s West Village and the Cap d’Antibes in the South of France. The pair “spent according to their means, which were effectively unlimited,” her lawyers argued in court documents.

But the couple is now fighting over some of their properties, like the six-story, 8,000-square-foot Notting Hill home where Collardeau-Fuchs lives with their two children. Court documents put the property’s worth up to $35 million.

Fuchs’ lawyer accused Collardeau-Fuchs of wanting “to live like a billionaire, having signed an agreement that she will live like a mere multi-millionaire,” according to documents filed ahead of a hearing on Thursday in London High Court.

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The 62-year-old Fuchs, who co-founded RFR with Aby Rosen, said in court documents that he’s worth around $1.1 billion.

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Collardeau-Fuchs, 47, is requesting the equivalent of $50 million for herself and £1.2 million in child support, which Fuchs’ lawyers say is a spousal claim “in disguise,” and should instead be at£30 million.

Her argument for the settlement hinges on the couple’s pre-nuptial agreement, the terms of which she claims Fuchs violated by not setting up a joint investment fund for the couple and by not meeting financial obligations. As a result, bailiffs responded to the house at least five times.

Fuchs married Collardeau-Fuchs in 2012, four years before the family moved to London. She previously alleged Fuchs has tried to control her spending since they separated and made her daily life “intolerable.”