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发帖数: 412 | 1 Lonely Billionaires Roam Globe, Require Luxury Love Therapy
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/lonely-billionaires-ro
Billionaires need love, too.
Inside an elegant Berkeley Square London townhouse, a team of eight
executive matchmakers have spent the past 23 years quietly making a fortune
coupling romance-starved millionaires and billionaires.
For between $24,000 and $93,000, Virginia Sweetingham and her luxury love
advisers at Gray & Farrar International will vet suitable partners for
clients prepared to abandon the raunchier applications of money and love.
“There are a lot of wealthy single people out there ready to commit,
looking for loyalty,” Sweetingham, 53, says of her current client base of
750 men and 750 women.
The median age is around 40 years old. The firm’s youngest client is
currently an “ambitious and focused” 22-year-old man, the oldest a fellow
“over 70 with a great sense of intelligent humor.”
(For the suspicious asset manager, no less an investment authority than the
private-banking house Coutts & Co. hails Sweetingham’s concierge romance
service as a splendid way “to find love,” according to the U.K. bank’s
website.)
“The pressure of work is the top barrier for them in finding a partner,”
says Sweetingham, a single mother of four, tapping a fish bowl filled with
white orchid petals in her firm’s homey interview salon.
“Our clients want to meet new people, enter new social circles in a
dignified way.”
‘Ugly Tree’
It’s the oldest story around, a tale of boy-seeks-girl- seeks-boy that
Sweetingham says has been debauched by TV shows like “Millionaire
Matchmaker” and cyber-love sites such as Loveplot, Manhunt and UglyBug Ball
, “for people,” who the site says, “have fallen from the ugly tree and
hit every branch on their way down.”
It’s no longer necessary to ask “Eleanor Rigby” where all the lonely
people come from. They’re a click away and, at membership prices that range
from $19.95 to $59.95, the axis of a behemoth lovelorn brokerage industry
that the OnLine Publishers Association values at $932 million and the U.S.
venture-capital firm Canaan Partners pegs at $4 billion a year.
“There are many multimillionaires who come to us, flashing the cash to buy
whatever they want,” Sweetingham says. “We don’t cater to those with that
system of core values. Gray & Farrar is not about casual dating.”
It also has nothing to do with Gray or Farrar.
“I didn’t want a cheesy name for the company,” says Sweetingham, who
scoured surnames listed in the phone book, picking Gray and Farrar as the
most suitable.
Kitchen Encounter
“I needed a proper name that gave no clue to what we do,” Sweetingham
recalls of the business started around an Oxfordshire kitchen table in 1983.
“My first two clients were a 32-year-old British army officer named Neil
and a delightful 27- year-old blonde executive named Sue.”
The fee was 575 pounds ($920) each. Sweetingham says they’re now happily
married with three children. Don’t even think about asking for evidence of
the transaction.
“Confidentiality: We can’t compromise our clients, the relationship is
sacrosanct and our position reassures them,” Sweetingham says. “The name
reflects the privacy and sensitivity of our work and reduces the slight
stigma clients feel in coming to us for help.”
Cheekbone Measurements
Their requests are often daunting. “We have one male client who has a
particular look in mind, right down to the precise length of her cheekbones,
” Sweetingham says. “That’s a specific brief that requires our bespoke
service. Some of the tools we employ are the world’s lists of the most
beautiful and available men and women.”
Sweetingham says the firm’s yield curve is 90 percent. “We successfully
match two out of every three clients within one year,” she says. “About 10
percent fail to end in marriage.”
A computerized client database is forbidden for security reasons. Almost
everything is done by hand.
“The men get blue folders, the women pink,” says Sweetingham. As for the
annual fee, Sweetingham reckons “the price is indicative of our clients’
commitment to find the right person and settle into a relationship; they’re
individuals who wouldn’t think twice about paying even more to an
executive headhunter to locate the right job candidate.”
Our interview begins over fresh-brewed coffee served in a stylish porcelain
cup. Sweetingham’s 31-year-old daughter Claire, who holds a degree in
biochemistry, is in charge and she’s not wearing a lab coat. Her mother’s
dress is designer black, the scarf burgundy and her eyes, a warm sapphire.
“We can’t deliver chemistry,” Sweetingham says. “We offer fate and
chance. We stage, we don’t script.”
Right Demographic
She says due diligence is paramount. Potential clients are screened before
sitting down for the first of two meetings to discuss demographics and why
previous relationships ended in emotional disaster. Sweetingham says the No.
1 reason for heartbreak among the rich is a couple’s failure to grasp each
other’s lifestyle.
“Wealthy single people today between the ages of 25 and 40 are gypsies who
live nomadic lifestyles,” Sweetingham says of her core clientele.
“For them, the most important thing is to meet someone who understands that
lifestyle. What they tell me is they’d rather be on their own than with
the wrong person. These are people whose lives consist of departure lounges,
private planes and hotel rooms.”
All of them have one thing in common. “They want to find a partner with
whom they can create a legacy,” she says. “Everyone wants a real legacy.”
Therapeutic Adventure
Sweetingham says accomplishing that task is almost a science and that her
clients find the experience a therapeutic adventure. “I know if a client is
for us within the first five minutes.”
Video conferences and meetings outside the U.K. are available for those who
can’t make it to Mayfair. Pink and blue folders in hand, the Sweetinghams
deal their hand. “The man always makes the first call and the first date is
always over dinner,” Virginia says.
“Then nature takes over,” Claire adds. “We do a debrief on how both
clients felt about their date. I can pinpoint the right client-to-client
chemistry by the third or fourth date.”
The Sweetinghams say the biggest change in their lonely- hearts business
over the past two decades is the growth of the firm’s international clients
and their transient lifestyles.
“We have more demand than we can cater for, though most people over 50
still don’t get what we do,” Claire says. “Wealthy young people are used
to asking for help, so the shame once attached to using a matchmaker doesn’
t exist for them.”
Single in Shanghai
Sweetingham’s statistics over the past decade show a 20 percent drop in
divorced clients. She calls the figure critical for expanding the Gray &
Farrar brand, particularly in Shanghai, a city full of moneyed single men
and women and one of the firm’s fastest growing metropolitan markets.
“Fewer than 40 percent of our clients are divorced and the number continues
to decline,” Sweetingham says. “The majority of our new clients have
always been single and that’s a significant global generational statement.”
“Women who have it all are willing to give up their success tomorrow for a
family,” Claire insists. “The men tell me that their expensive toys are no
longer an exemplar of success. Our clients want a home.”
Information: http://www.grayandfarrar.com
To contact the writer on the story: A. Craig Copetas in London at ccopetas@
bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at
m**********[email protected]. | m****s
发帖数: 7397 | 2 i LOVE that ugly Tree comment!!!!!!!
I read aloud 3 times last night before I went to sleep.
hahahahahaha
"Those OTHER sites, are for people who have fallen from the ugly tree and
hit every branch on their way down.”
wahahhahahahahaha!!! | y*e
发帖数: 9799 | 3 I don't understand this analogy
【在 m****s 的大作中提到】
: i LOVE that ugly Tree comment!!!!!!!
: I read aloud 3 times last night before I went to sleep.
: hahahahahaha
: "Those OTHER sites, are for people who have fallen from the ugly tree and
: hit every branch on their way down.”
: wahahhahahahahaha!!!
| a*o
发帖数: 25262 | 4 A person is unattractive and he/she can't hold on any relationships (
branches) while falling down the tree..
【在 y*e 的大作中提到】
: I don't understand this analogy
| a*o
发帖数: 25262 | 5 1. great business.
2. < 40% divorce rate for matched couples..... I don't think the % is small.
..LOL...
3. Shanghai... full of singles, fastest growing metropolitan markets.. |
|
