FT - Feb 14 - Inga Verbeeck is head of European operations at Berkeley International, a dating agency for the very wealthy. Berkeley membership costs a minimum €10K a year. Berkeley has grown in 10 years from 300 to 3,000 members. Ms Verbeeck says the plan is to reach 10K members within three years, including a move into same-sex dating. The business has opened offices in Brussels, Paris and Milan and will add Geneva, Amsterdam and Copenhagen this year. It also has a small presence in the US that it aims to expand. ~60% of Berkeley’s members are women and roughly the same proportion are divorced. Vetting potential members normally takes a couple of weeks. 1 in 10 applicants is politely turned down, usually because they have unrealistic expectations.
by Hugh Carnegy
See full article at Financial Times
