Gray & Farrar International, the name does not suggest at all their field of business. Well, they operate from an elegant Berkeley Square London townhouse and their team of executives have been match making for romance starved millionaires and billionaires. For a fees ranging from $24,000 to 93,000, a simple math will tell you that the luxury love advisers must have made a fortune. Sweetingham, 53, started 23 years ago with two clients a 32-year-old British army officer named Neil and a delightful 27- year-old blonde executive named Sue. The fee she charged was under $1,000 each and they turned out to be made for each other. Sweetingham hasn’t looked back since then.
Gray & Farrar have a 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.†It is the pressure of work and the resultant paucity of time that comes in the way of their clients in finding a partner. The success ratio of the firm is almost 90%. They successfully match two out of every three clients within one year, only about 10 percent fail to end in marriage.
Sweetingham is very clear that Gray & Farrar is not about casual dating. She believes that the wealthy people are ready to commit but are looking for loyalty. The confidentiality and privacy of the client is sacrosanct for them. In fact no computerized client database is prepared for security reasons. They screen the potential clients before accepting them. Sweetingham says “I know if a client is for us within the first five minutes.†The firm’s international client list has grown over the years. But the thing that gives her more satisfaction is that fewer than 40 percent of their clients are divorced and the number continues to decline.
Via: bloomberg
