Wealthy fund manager ‘didn’t want to be married’

MULTIMILLIONAIRE fund manager Alan Miller “didn’t particularly want to be married, but the wife would not cohabit with him unless they were wed”, the Court of Appeal was told by his QC last year.

But Mr Miller’s decision to propose has ended up landing his ex-wife with a £5 million windfall after less than three years of marriage.

He met Melissa, an American, in 1995 shortly after she arrived in Britain to work for a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge.

At the time Mr Miller was working for fund management company Jupiter and was earning about £1 million a year. She had a salary of about £85,000 and lived in a rented flat in Cambridge. It was four years before the couple finally became engaged, a fact that appeared to persuade an appeal court judge last year that Mrs Miller had been committed to the relationship.

Before the marriage in July 2000, Mr Miller bought what was to become the matrimonial home at Elm Park Road, Chelsea, for £1.8 million. Just before the wedding Mr Miller also received £20 million due to him from the sale of Jupiter to Commerzbank, a considerable boost to his fortune.

The marriage came to an abrupt end in April 2003 when Mr Miller “left to pursue his relationship with another woman”, and a divorce courts battle ensued. During the case, Mr Miller’s wealth was estimated at around £17.5 million and he also had shares valued at between £12.35 million and £18.11 million.

In April last year, High Court family division judge Mr Justice Singer ordered Mr Miller to pay off the £500,000 mortgage on the Chelsea home – by then worth £2.3m – and hand it over to his former wife.

He was ordered to pay Mrs Miller a lump sum of £2.7m. Mr Miller refused to accept the ruling and took the case to the Court of Appeal in July 2005.

Lewis Marks QC, who represented Mr Miller at the appeal hearing, told the judges his client would have been better off if he had knocked down his wife in his car.