NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Jane Beasley Welch plans to divorce former General Electric Corp. CEO Jack Welch, CNNfn learned Tuesday, and she may be entitled to some of the business icon's substantial wealth.

Jane Welch has hired Manhattan family law attorney William Zabel, who acknowledged he was drawing up financial settlement papers and eventually would file for divorce. Zabel would not comment on whether or not the divorce arose from recent allegations of an affair between Jack Welch and former Harvard Business Review Editor Suzy Wetlaufer.

"I have been instructed to try to negotiate an amicable settlement and divorce," Zabel told CNNfn. "Contrary to all this publicity that he [Welch] has caused, she does not want to negotiate in public or litigate."

Welch's office has not responded to a request for comment.

Welch's fortune, built during his 20 years as chairman of GE, is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. His stock in GE at Tuesday's value is worth nearly $900 million, and his total annual compensation from GE in 2001 was $16.2 million.

According to his wife's lawyer, she could be entitled to a 50-50 split, at least of property accumulated during their nearly 13 years of marriage. The New York Daily News reported earlier Tuesday that the Welches entered a pre-nuptial agreement when they married in 1989, but that agreement has expired.

Arnold Rutkin, the Westport, Conn.-based lawyer who represented Lorna Wendt in her divorce from former GE executive Gary Wendt, said it's unlikely the Welches, who live in Connecticut, will settle with a 50-50 split of assets. "Connecticut is an equitable distribution state, depending on the length of the marriage and the size of the assets," he said.

Jane Welch's role as a corporate wife will be an important factor in her settlement, Rukin said, and the 11 pictures of her in Welch's best-selling autobiography, Jack: Straight from the Gut, shows he thought her role was important.

Jack Welch, 66, served as chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE: down $0.05 to $41.10, Research, Estimates), the world's largest corporation in terms of stock capitalization, for 20 years, earning the gratitude of GE shareholders -- and the nickname "Neutron Jack" -- for his relentless cost cutting. When he left the company in September 2001, it had market capitalization of $402.4 billion -- a gain of about 5,000 percent during his tenure.

Welch suffered some disappointments at the end of his tenure, namely the failure to consummate a merger with Honeywell International Inc. (HON: up $0.06 to $40.17, Research, Estimates) and an order by U.S. regulators that GE spend hundreds of millions of dollars to dredge the Hudson River in New York to clean up PCBs it dumped there decades ago. During the last year of his tenure, GE's stock lost nearly a third of its value.

Still, his legend was already well established, having inspired a host of books studying his management style; and his own book, Jack: Straight from the Gut, has been a bestseller since its release in September.

Published reports have surfaced recently about Welch's alleged affair with Wetlaufer, who wrote a profile of him for the Harvard Business Review and then reportedly asked that the article be pulled because she was "too close" to Welch. Wetlaufer resigned last week in response to calls from other editors at the publication that she do so.

But the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Wetlaufer was able to keep her office and will stay with the publication as an "editor at large." According to the Journal report, Jack Welch was infuential in helping Wetlaufer keep a job with the publication. Welch has declined to discuss any possible relationship with Wetlaufer.

Welch has four children from a previous marriage but none from his marriage to Jane Welch, a former corporate lawyer. Jane and Jack Welch were reportedly building a new house in Connecticut, which now may never be occupied by the couple.