The daughter of a late billionaire tycoon has been deemed “entitled” by a judge who rejected her demands for a $228 million slice of her estranged family fortune.
Serene Warren, 55, was awarded “only” $41 million by Judge Edward Wahl in Minneapolis last week and ordered to pay her own costs.
The ruling ended a five-year battle that Wahl condemned as “tragic litigation” and in which Warren parted ways with her late father Ken Evenstad and brother Mark Evenstad.
Ken came from humble roots, trained as a pharmacist, and made his fortune after purchasing the pharmaceutical firm Upsher-Smith for $1,500 in 1969.
The company was taken to even greater heights by Ken’s son Mark, Serene’s brother, after he was appointed CEO in 2004.
He quadrupled the company’s value to $1.1 billion when it was sold in 2017, but Serene, who has been a stay-at-home mom since 1994, lashed out after her brother was financially rewarded for his hard work.
Serene Warren, pictured with her late father Ken Evenstad, lost out on a bid for a $228 million slice of her family’s pharmaceutical fortune.
Serene’s brother, Mark, pictured here, helped quadruple the size of the family pharmaceutical company Upsher-Smith so that it was sold for $1.1 billion in 2017, but Serene complained when he was handed an extra 1.5 percent of shares. actions, despite the fact that she stayed in- housewife since 1994
He did so despite receiving more than $328 million in his lifetime from his father, who died in 2020, and his mother Grace.
The drama began after Ken decided to give Mark an additional 1.5 percent of shares in 2014 as a reward for the company’s wild success.
Warren felt it was unfair that his brother received the additional shares, and the bad blood continued, even as his father battled a terminal illness.
In 2016, he cut off all communication with his family.
In 2017, he demanded that the family business be sold as a path to his own “financial independence.”
She owned 25 percent of the company at the time, worth around $250 million.
In 2018, Warren sued his family for more than $75 million in bonuses paid to Ken and Mark Evenstad, arguing they unfairly reduced the value of the company, and therefore his stake.
An independent auditor found that the bonuses were fair and, in fact, Ken and his son were underpaid for many years, given the impact they had had on the former smaller pharmaceutical company.
Judge Edward Wahl, who presides over the court in Hennepin County, said it was painful that Warren had chosen “this tragic litigation” over accepting a settlement offered years ago, which would have seen her walk away with $150 million.
Warren has been a stay at home mom since 1994 and her husband, Chris, has not had a job since 2004.
However, Wahl said Warren developed a sense of “entitlement” to what he thought his parents owed him, according to the judgment obtained by The Tribune of the Stars.
Wahl praised “the generosity of (Warren’s) parents.”
Ken was so devoted to his daughter that he even named his celebrated Oregon vineyard after her: Domaine Serene, a popular tourist destination in the Willamette Valley.
Serene and her husband Chris live in this $3.2 million mansion in Minnesota. Chris hasn’t worked since 2004.
Ken is pictured with his wife Grace at their Domane Serene vineyard in Oregon. He is named after his daughter, who was separated from both parents at the time of her father’s death in 2020.
Wahl said it was sad that the family feud had to be aired in public.
“The tragedy of this case is now compounded by the court’s duty to explain its decision in detail in a public forum,” Wahl said.
“The court is dissatisfied to have to set out in such detail what would probably have been best for all the major players had it been resolved by private negotiation.”
Judge Wahl, in his ruling, said that Warren was not in a position to assess how his father and brother ran the company.
He said Ken and his wife Grace, with Mark, “exemplify the characteristics of many successful and driven corporate executives” who work hard and accumulate the kind of knowledge that helps them make “difficult business decisions.”
He added: ‘Serene and Chris, on the other hand, chose a different path.
“As a consequence of her life choices, Serene did not have the business experience and related skills and knowledge that Ken, Grace and Mark possessed when critical decision times arose for this litigation between 2016 and 2019.”
The judge said he could see why some decisions ‘bothered’ her, but could not find that she had been let down.
Ken Everstad died in 2020, at the age of 77.
Wahl said the case was sad, but it reflected the decisions Warren had made.
“If Serene is disappointed that she can’t end up with a substantial inheritance on top of her hundreds of millions in shareholder distributions, she’s made decisions in the last six years that have consequences,” he said.