In mid-August, the divorce of Chinese celebrity couple Wang Baoqiang and Ma Rong was the talk of social media in China because of the wife’s affair with Wang’s manager Song Zhe.
The scandal has been replaced by reports of one of the most expensive divorce settlements in China involving Zhou Yahui, the owner of online gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech. Forbes reported that Zhou Yahui ordered the transfer of 7.3 billion yuan or $1.1 billion to his wife Li Qiong whom he just divorced.
A Beijing court ordered Zhou to turn over some of his Kunlun shares to Li Qiong on Tuesday, reported Time. The two met in elementary school and spent most of the time in the U.S. since their marriage. The reasons for their divorce are unknown.
The amount is equivalent to 278 million shares in Kunlun, based on the company’s closing price of 26.4 yuan on Thursday. Zhou still hold a 34.5 percent stake in Kunlun valued at 10.1 billion, or $1.5 billion. Despite the divorce settlement, he still maintains control of the online gaming firm, while Li will follow the original share lock-up period which ends on January 2018, according to Kunlun’s filing with the Chinese regulator.
Zhou became rich by the distribution of Chinese online games overseas which accounted for 74 percent of the company’s 1.78-billion yuan revenue in 2015.
Besides investing in LendInvest, a lending startup in UK, Zhou also acquired a controlling stake in Grindr, a gay-dating app, in early 2016.
Kunlun said the divorce would not affect the company’s operations. The ex-couple is now part of the 2.8 percent of China’s population who are now divorced, up from 1.7 percent in 2008, said the Ministry of Civil Affairs.