AFTER finalizing her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Bezos lands at the No. 4 spot on the list of world’s richest women.

MacKenzie will retain 25 percent of the couple’s stock in Amazon, or about a 4-percent stake in the entire company, she announced from a newly created Twitter account Thursday.

That stake is worth approximately US$36 billion per Amazon’s current share price.

That fortune makes MacKenzie, a writer, the fourth-richest woman in the world, behind Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the L’Oreal heiress with a net worth of US$54 billion and Alice Walton of the Walmart family and her US$44 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires’ Index.

MacKenzie is nearly tied with the third woman on the list, Jacqueline Badger Mars of the Mars candy company family, who has a net worth of US$37 billion. Some estimates of MacKenzie’s 4-percent stake place that value closer to that number.

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to our next phase as co-parents and friends,” MacKenzie said in her statement. “Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.”

The couple first announced the end of their 25-year marriage in January, shining a spotlight on MacKenzie, who had stayed out of the limelight amid speculation about the fate of the couple’s combined fortune.

If the couple had agreed on an even split, the default under Washington state law, MacKenzie would have vaulted to first on the list of the world’s richest women. (Her combined fortune with Jeff Bezos didn’t put her on the radar of these lists before the divorce.)

Jeff Bezos will retain voting control of MacKenzie Bezos’ shares, she said in her statement. She also gave up her interests in the Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos independently from Amazon, and his space exploration company Blue Origin.

Estimates of MacKenzie’s wealth are based on her Amazon holdings and not any other components of her net worth. She is a writer who has published two novels.

(SD-Agencies)