For the peasants that don’t know, there’s “a world in which the rich and famous spare no expense in their mission to find love” – and it’s called billionaire matchmaking.
If there’s one person that knows the business best, it’s Mairead Molloy, an Irish-born hotelier and qualified criminal psychologist that now heads up Berkeley International, the world’s most elite introductions agency.
Business Insider took her on a casual date to get some intel about the company’s operations:
Berkeley’s clients are wealthy professionals — she counts millionaires, billionaires, and even celebrities on her books — who are looking for love but don’t have time to find it themselves.
In case you were wondering, this is what she looks like:
Her daily routine is quite different to that of an accountant, often jumping onto a plane to find the perfect match for her clients.
Just how deep are their pockets?
Berkeley’s pricing starts from £15,000 and goes up to £60,000 for private headhunting, with a year of unlimited introductions. But Molloy said she can charge up to £100,000 for highly tailored packages — with some very specific requests.
Hmm, ‘specific requests’ has quite a provocative ring to it, but it’s not what you’re thinking. Or is it, Molloy?
“It all depends on how discrete you want us to be, how much travelling you want me to do, how much of my team you need. The more tailored you want it — the more we charge. A lot of people need to be hand held and we’ll look after them from start to finish.”
Once again, this ‘finish’ is the PG version.
According to Molloy, the “lipstick effect” – digital dating fatigue and global uncertainty – is to be thanked for the boom in recent business:
“People can come in and talk to us over a glass of wine or we go to their houses,” she said.
“The trend for the human touch is back. It’s all a bit Pride and Prejudice and people love it.”
And the dates? Tell us about the dates?
“We work a lot with private jet charters to fly people back and forth.
“They’ll land in Paris and then fly back to London — it’s dinner in the sky! You don’t ever get off the plane, it just touches down to land and then they fly back.”
So if I gave Berkeley £100 000, what would I get? I’m quite a picky guy. I like humour, art, theatre and… travelling. What can you do for a man of my calibre?
Sense of humour is one of the most sought-after qualities that Molloy’s clients are looking for in a match. Being interested in art, a love of theatre, horse riding, walks in the park, and travelling are all also pretty standard requests.
Spot on. Take my money.
Apparently celebrities are pretty interested in the service, too. Molloy says that “well known” people will say things like “I want to meet that guy that was in that TV show, can you track him down?”
Track him down she does. One of her female clients’ parents are dropping the £100 000 because:
“They want to find a husband for her who has to be of Indian-American heritage, who’s from a very specific university — in this case it’s Harvard — and has to live in San Francisco.”
So organised marriage is still a thing in the West, and it’s not always the parents that do the dirty work. They just pay someone else to do it now.
If this is getting your heart pumping and you’re super loaded, you can find out more here.
[source:businessinsider]
