Bill and Melinda Gates have begun to divide their fortune, and Melinda is now a billionaire in her own right.
Bill Gates' holding company Cascade Investment transferred stakes in several companies worth nearly $2.4 billion to Melinda Gates on the same day the Microsoft founder and his wife of nearly 30 years announced their divorce, according to The Wall Street Journal.
According to SEC filings, Melinda Gates is now one of the largest shareholders in Coca-Cola bottler Coca-Cola Femsa SAB and Grupo Televisa, which are both based in Mexico. And she now also holds 14.1 million shares of the Canadian National Railway, and 2.94 million shares of U.S. car dealership owner AutoNation.
Melinda Gates' fortune has long been intertwined with Bill Gates'. Even after the stock transfer, he is still the fourth-richest person in the world, with a wealth of about $130 billion. According to Forbes, which maintains a real-time billionaires list, the stock transfer has made Melinda Gates a billionaire on her own.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said in a statement that the couple will continue to shape the organization's policies, champion its causes, and set its course. Bill Gates is 65 years old, and Melinda Gates is 56.
A divorce petition filed by Melinda Gates, obtained by Yahoo Finance, mentions the couple's separation agreement and requests that property and debts be divided "as set forth in our separation contract."
The new billionaire reportedly says in the petition: "This marriage is irretrievably broken. We ask the court to dissolve our marriage and find that our marital community ended on the date stated in our separation contract."
Bill Gates made his fortune as a co-founder of Microsoft, the software behemoth he co-founded in 1975. According to Forbes, he is the world's fourth richest person, with a net worth of $124 billion. He left Microsoft's day-to-day operations in 2008 and left the company's board of directors last year to focus on philanthropic endeavors.
The couple met in 1987, shortly after Melinda Gates started working at Microsoft. They married on Jan. 1, 1994.
