Citigroup Bets (On) The Ranch
By Lee Clifford

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Sandra Feagan Stern, an elegant grandmother of four with a lilting North Carolina accent, has what is perhaps the most unusual job in all of Citigroup's posh private-banking division. It requires her to have on hand such tomes as A Practical Guide to Small Scale Goatkeeping, dress like an English aristocrat (on a typical day, custom-made Harris tweed blazers and barn boots), and know not only what a Norwegian Fjord is (it's a horse) but how to breed one.

This is private banking? It is at Citigroup, where Stern runs the nascent farm and multiple properties division. Along with the art advisory service and family advisory practice (which helps clients deal with the personal issues that arise from having plenty of money), this peripheral offering is part of the company's push to cater to every whim of its wealthiest clients. The minimum to have your money impeccably managed here is $3 million.

Stern, who owned a similarly themed consulting firm before hooking up with Citigroup a year ago, operates on a retainer basis and typically serves at the beck and call of horsy types for six months to two years. One passion: advising clients on the breeding and racing of thoroughbreds. She'll tap her equine network to find the proper help around the barn and oversee the construction of a training course, should a client have an ardor for, say, "eventing" (a triathlon of cross-country gallop, jumping, and dressage, she patiently explains). One client's horse and rider, she beams, was selected for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

If it seems terribly old money, it's not. "A lot of new-money people will buy a farm and have no idea what to do with it," she says. Which is why her duties also range from consulting on cattle breeding to helping manage second, third, and even fourth homes. "A lot of people do sell beautiful properties, because they're such a headache," she says. "I try to solve all the problems."

Problems that at times verge on the bizarre. Take the goat-cheese loving New Jersey clan who came across a vexing dilemma: palate boredom. "They were tired of eating ordinary goat cheese," says Stern, who was commissioned to find enticing varietals. Like her private-banking peers, Stern listened to the clients' needs, examined their tolerance for risk, and came up with the perfect addition to their portfolio: sage and caraway seeds.

--Lee Clifford