A millionaire American financier who complained that his estranged wife pocketed too much money following the breakdown of their marriage has lost a Court of Appeal fight.

Randy Work said a High Court judge did not give him a big enough share of a £140 million fortune.

Mr Work said Mr Justice Holman, who concluded that Mandy Gray should get a half-share after analysing the case at a trial in the Family Division of the High Court in London, did not recognise the “special contribution” he had made to the creation of wealth.

Mandy Gray (Nick Ansell/PA)

He said he should get 61% share and his estranged wife 39%. But three appeal judges have dismissed his challenge after analysing evidence at a hearing in London.

Mr Justice Holman had said, in a ruling in March 2015, that he had to consider the ”specialness” required before concluding that a contribution to marital wealth was “special”.

He said some judges had referred to a “special contribution” possessing the “quality of genius” in earlier rulings. But he said genius tended to be an overused word.

“I personally find that a difficult, and perhaps unhelpful, word in this context,” Mr Justice Holman had said.

Mr Justice Holman said they had been ”two strong and equal partners” over 20 years and Ms Gray had been a ”good wife” and ”home-maker”.

He suggested that without her contribution Mr Work, who worked for a Dallas-based private equity firm called Lone Star, would not have been able to ”amass the wealth”.

Appeal judges said Mr Work had failed to establish that Mr Justice Holman’s decision was wrong.

They said they agreed that the “use of the word ‘genius’ was unhelpful”.