The first half of the meeting was the gathering of information portion. Bette and Tina presented documents on all their assets: real estate, business interest, collections, investment accounts, retirement accounts, trust accounts for their children and personal assets. They presented schedules on their anticipated income and their limited debt which was generally their monthly bills including credit card debt, and being the guarantor on their children’s bank accounts.

The second part of the meeting they talked about their future plans. That included when they planned to retire, their living expenses now and what was anticipated at retirement, what additional activities they planned on such as additional travel, charity donations, and possible support to other family members. They talked about what they anticipated their support to their children would be in the way of education, life style support and grandchildren support.

The final part of the meeting was what the plans were as far as what would happen if the health of one or both of them changed dramatically, suddenly and for a long term and then how they wanted their estate distributed at their death. Bette and Tina agreed that the estate would go one third to the surviving spouse and one third to each child. And should the spouse not survive them, it would go 50 percent to each child after fulfilling some specific bequest, paying the just debts of the deceased including taxes. Geri was impressed as their combined net worth was just over at $200 million and a 75 percent of it was in liquid assets. Less than 15,000 people in the world have that net worth or more.

Geri was ready to make a deal with Bette and Tina. Geri offered them a flat rate of $500,000 investment fee for the first year if Bette and Tina would move all their accounts to the investment firm. One fee would be for all investment services for all accounts. All consultation services, legal services, and estate planning services would be at an additional fee which could be negotiated either on a flat rate per service or with a retainer which guaranteed a minimum amount of hours of services for the year.  Bette and Tina calculated that it was just above a quarter of one percent per year which they had never heard anyone having. They accepted. The fee would be taken on a quarterly basis from their joint investment accounts.