Value of Private Equity Firm at Issue in Founder’s Divorce
Marc Leder is the co-founder of Sun Capital Partners, a
powerhouse in the industry, and he is not having a good year, according to
Richard Wilner of the New York Post. The
47-year-old Long Island native is currently filing for divorce from Lisa
Leder.
The couple had been married for
22 years. As a private equity trader,
Leder has also seen his company lose a painful chunk of its portfolio
due to the economic recession. Now, his
two troubles are intersecting.
Marc and Lisa have reportedly agreed to split much of their
$243 million in assets, a portfolio that includes a 15,000 square-foot mansion near
Boca Raton, Florida, a ski house in Vermont, and a number of cars and a stake
in a private jet. That, for the Leders,
was the easy part.
Determining the value of Sun Capital Partners, and Marc
Leder’s 50% stake in the company, has proven much more difficult, and
the couple is reportedly engaged in a bitter battle to decide that issue.
According to Marc Leder’s divorce attorney, Albert Caruana, "Lisa wants half the value of Marc’s stake in Sun plus half of what he will get
from Fund V down the road." Caruana
refers to a $6 billion fund Sun Capital created two years ago. "He is a generous fellow but it would be
abusive for him to do that, crazy for him to do that."
Caruana claims that Lisa’s right to a 50/50 split of the
couple’s assets became locked in when she filed for divorce in February of this
year.
In other words, the value the
assets had at the time of the agreement is what she reportedly believes she should get. Caruana and his client believe that Lisa is
entitled simply to half of whatever the assets are worth, and since the early
part of the year, those assets, including Fund V, are worth much less.
"Marc has to continue to…turn [Fund V’s assets] around. He has to do all these things in the future
to create the value [Lisa claims she is due]."
The attorney says that Lisa has admitted to having an affair
with her 23-year-old tennis coach in 2008, and subsequently moved the couple’s three
children into the house of her new boyfriend without their father’s consent.
"He found out his kids were moved two weeks prior only when
two women approached him and asked him if he knew about it."
Leder has apparently offered his wife a settlement worth
more than half of their shared assets, which would make her one of the
wealthiest women in the state of Florida. That offer was turned down.
"Marc doesn’t like litigation," Caruana says. "He doesn’t want to be here. He has wanted to settle since October."
The Leders will be in court in early August to try again at
an agreement, but Lisa Leder is requesting a significant amount of Sun
Capital’s documents in an attempt to prove what she claims the company is worth
and thus what her share of it should be, and the dispute is not expected to be
resolved until that evidence has been divulged and the value of the company
firmly established.
Source: New York Post
