Two Sigma co-founder John Overdeck won a court bid to keep parts of testimony about his $80 billion hedge fund's assets behind closed doors as his estranged wife Laura fights for a share of what she says is a $6.2 billion marital fortune.
On October 6, 2026 — the tenth day of a multiday hearing — family-court Judge Bruce Buechler ruled on Overdeck's request to kick the public out of a Newark courtroom during testimony about the breakdown of the assets of his $80 billion Manhattan-based hedge fund, Two Sigma. The judge ruled against sealing the entire testimony of Overdeck's expert financial witness, Todd Povlich, but agreed that the portions of the testimony that could reveal Two Sigma's company secrets should be heard behind closed doors.
The ruling came in the latest installment of what has been described as New Jersey's biggest divorce case. Laura Overdeck, 56, is fighting to be awarded 35% of John's third of the company he founded with two other people in 2001 — including David Siegel, with whom John is locked in a separate bitter power struggle over control of the firm. Laura and John, who have three children, never signed a prenuptial agreement when they married in 2002.
The central dispute is the value of John's stake: his side claims his portion of Two Sigma is worth $4.5 billion, while Laura's side says it is worth $6.2 billion, staking her claim on the theory that the business is a marital asset. During the public portions of Tuesday's hearing, Laura — described as wearing red glasses, a cream blazer, blue plaid pants and heeled mules — appeared actively engaged, typing on a laptop and conferring frequently with her lawyers. John, meanwhile, spent much of the session looking down at his cell phone as his lawyer questioned Povlich, his second-to-last witness.
Overdeck is a rare figure in finance: a mathematical prodigy turned hedge-fund billionaire whose firm pioneered the use of big data and machine learning in quantitative trading. The divorce has pulled back the curtain on one of the most secretive firms on Wall Street, with Laura's legal team seeking to force public disclosure of the fund's inner workings. The case is expected to continue through additional hearing days as the court weighs the fate of the multibillion-dollar fortune.
Two Sigma's secrecy is legendary on Wall Street. The firm, which manages tens of billions of dollars using machine-learning models, guards its algorithms and data as trade secrets, and the divorce proceedings have offered an unusual window into how the firm values itself. The gap between the two sides' valuations — $4.5 billion versus $6.2 billion — reflects not just a marital dispute but the inherent difficulty of pricing a stake in a private quantitative trading giant whose edge lies in proprietary code.