Billionaire industrialist Kjell Inge Rokke (pictured) may be top of Norway’s rich list on the back of savvy investments in the oil and gas business but, in the words of The Beatles’ song, “money can’t buy me love”.

Conversely, his ex-wife has found marriage can be a lucrative affair, especially when terminating it with the country’s richest businessman.

Rokke has leapt to the top of the earnings league table after nearly doubling his personal fortune to an eye-watering Nkr20.6 billion ($2.4 billion) last year from Nkr11.1 billion in 2016, though he is ironically listed with zero income, according to the latest figures from Norwegian tax authorities. The tycoon has been raking in huge returns from his investment outfit The Resource Group (TRG), which is the dominant owner of Oslo-listed holding company Aker, in particular from the latter’s 40% stake in oil company Aker BP that saw its shares soar 34% last year on higher earnings from resurgent oil prices.

However, the downside to Rokke’s rising financial fortunes is that he entered a marital separation pact earlier this year with former partner Anne Grete Eidsvig, who appears to have profited handsomely from the transaction.

She has also seen her personal cash pile nearly double, albeit from a more modest level of Nkr240 million, to Nkr460 million on the back of the separation after Rokke last year bought out her minority holding in TRG that was worth a reported Nkr425 million.

Separately, another oily investor, Frederik Wilhelm Mohn, is now ranked eighth in Norway’s rich list with a fortune of nearly Nkr5 billion after cashing in on the sale of Songa Offshore, in which he was the dominant shareholder, to rig giant Transocean.

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Caring is sharing for Rokke