The billionaire at the center of New Jersey's biggest divorce case has won his bid to keep the worth of his hedge fund's assets secret from the public, as he and his estranged wife battle over a staggering fortune.
John Overdeck, 56, asked a judge to bar the public from a Newark courtroom during testimony about the breakdown of the assets of Two Sigma, his $80 billion Manhattan-based hedge fund. Family-court Judge Bruce Buechler declined to seal the entire testimony of Overdeck's expert financial witness, Todd Povlich — but agreed that the portions of Povlich's testimony that could reveal Two Sigma's company secrets should take place behind closed doors.
The ruling came on the 10th day of a multiday hearing in which Overdeck's estranged wife, Laura Overdeck, 56, is fighting to be awarded 35% of John's one-third share of the company he founded with two other people in 2001 — including David Siegel, with whom John is locked in a bitter company power struggle. Laura and John, who have three children, never signed a prenuptial agreement when they married in 2002.
The gap between the two sides' valuations is enormous. John's side claims his portion of Two Sigma is worth $4.5 billion, while Laura's side puts it at $6.2 billion — a $1.7 billion difference that will determine how much of the fortune changes hands. Laura is staking her claim on the argument that the business is a marital asset built during their marriage.
During the public portions of Tuesday's hearing, Laura — described as actively engaged, typing on a laptop and frequently conferring with her lawyers — presented a sharp contrast with John, who reportedly spent much of his time in court looking down at his cell phone while his lawyer questioned Povlich, his second-to-last witness.
The case has become a fixture of New York-area financial gossip, combining as it does a marital split, a multibillion-dollar valuation fight, and a parallel corporate power struggle between two of quantitative finance's most prominent figures. Overdeck and Siegel's falling-out at Two Sigma has already roiled the firm; the divorce proceedings threaten to air even more of its closely guarded inner workings, which is precisely what John's sealing request was designed to prevent.
With the hearing continuing, the central question remains the valuation — and whether a judge will agree that Laura is entitled to more than a third of a stake her husband's side insists is worth far less than she claims. In a divorce already measured in the billions, even the closed-door testimony could move the needle by hundreds of millions.