Emily Smith

Emily Smith

Celebrity News
exclusive

Hedge fund billionaire splits with wife of almost 30 years

David Tepper, the world’s highest-paid fund manager for the past two years, has split with his wife of nearly 30 years, Page Six can exclusively reveal.

In what could be one of the most expensive hedge fund divorces yet, Tepper, 56, who runs $20 billion Appaloosa Management in Short Hills, NJ, and his wife, Marlene, have separated after 28 years of marriage, multiple sources confirmed.

We’re told David and Marlene, who married in 1986 and have three adult children, have yet to formally file for divorce. A source said, “They have separated and are telling friends the marriage has run its course. They hope to settle things quickly, quietly and amicably.”

But the split could prove extremely costly. Tepper, a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has an estimated net worth of $10 billion.

He is one of the most successful and respected managers in the hedge fund world, and after making a 2009 trade that netted his company $7.5 billion and himself a payday of nearly $4 billion, Tepper was quoted in New York Magazine as saying: “What do you think I should do with it? . . . I could buy an island. I could buy a private jet . . . I could get myself a 22-year-old!”

The former Goldman Sachs exec was ranked the top-earning investor in 2012, earning a $4.4 billion paycheck. In 2013, Tepper — who famously has a pair of giant brass testicles on a plaque adorning the wall of his office — personally earned $3.5 billion.

Tepper and Marlene share a mansion in Livingston, NJ. In 2011, he also bought a $43.5 million oceanfront Hamptons estate from Joanne Corzine, the ex-wife of his former Goldman boss, Jon Corzine. He had it demolished and built a bigger home so he could get a better view of the ocean from every room. “I’m ready to be rich,” he told a reporter at the time.

In 2004, he donated $55 million to his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon. The following year, the Teppers hired Ashlee Simpson to sing at their daughter’s bat mitzvah.

His spokesman declined to comment.