World's costliest divorce for £7bn Abramovich

Roman Abramovich and Dasha Zhukova. Photo / AP

Roman Abramovich ended his last marriage with a reputed settlement of £150 million ($265.9m) - small change for a multibillionaire.

This time, the Russian oligarch and owner of Chelsea football club may not be so lucky, after announcing that he has separated from his third wife, Dasha Zhukova. The couple, who married in 2008 and have two children, insisted the split was amicable, but they could get embroiled in the world's costliest divorce if forced to untangle the tycoon's 7 billion fortune.

Abramovich, 50, owns the football club, the second largest yacht in the world and several luxury properties, including a £60m mansion in New York and a £50m property in London's Kensington Palace Gardens.

Among his fleet of supercars is a Ferrari FXX prototype worth £1.5m and a Bugatti Veyron, priced at 2m.

However, Zhukova, an art collector who is 15 years Abramovich's junior, is the independently wealthy daughter of a Russian oil magnate and may not have any desire to pursue her husband for money.

In a joint statement, the couple said: "After 10 years together, the two of us have made the difficult decision to separate, but we remain close friends, parents and partners in the projects we developed together."

Legal experts said they expected Abramovich to have a prenuptial agreement in place and any divorce proceedings would be dealt with by a Russian court in order to protect his assets, much like his previous divorce, when he is understood to have ended his 16-year marriage to second wife Irina Vyacheslavovna Malandina at a cost of £150m in Moscow in 2007. Details have remained hidden under Russia's secretive legal system, but it is thought Malandina was given a lump sum as well as four homes and provision for their five children.

Abramovich and Zhukova were first seen together in public in 2005. The oligarch was still married to Malandina, but their friendship strengthened and Zhukova and her father, Alexander Zhukov, were invited to Abramovich's New Year party later that year. The couple married about nine years ago.

Abramovich married his first wife, Olga Yurevna Lysova, in December 1987 but was divorced just three years later. He wed Malandina in 1991, before he made his fortune in the Russian privatisation boom.

Raymond Tooth, a London divorce lawyer, believed Abramovich and Zhukova would have a pre-nup.

"He will have done a deal and will sort it out in Russia to avoid any claims in an English court," he said.