Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Your first question comes from line of Andrew Kligerman with UBS. Please proceed.
Andrew Kligerman – UBS
Hey good morning.
Jessica Bibliowicz
Good morning, Andrew.
Andrew Kligerman – UBS
Maybe you can give a little more clarity, Doug, around the expenses. You mentioned a firm that – sort of your two firms you said where you are sort of heaviest expense related companies and you "streamlined operations and decreased expenses". Can you get a little more granular on how you save that $3.1 million that you mentioned or plan to save that in 2009, very specifically what do these firms do?
Doug Hammond
Yes. I'm having a little bit of trouble hearing your question, but I think I get the gist of it, Andrew. We are really focused as a matter of priority on several firms that had very high expenses, they're related to different items and we approach each one of the firms differently. But as a general matter, we looked at the operations, looked at the performance, noted that the expenses were extremely high, engaged the partners – the principals in an overall planning review of their business and looked at staffing operations, internal resources, what NFP's resources internally could provide rather than what they had internally and took action with the firm principles. And at the end of the process, I can tell you that the firm principals that were involved welcomed the process and are very engaged with management moving forward to operate more profitably.
Andrew Kligerman – UBS
And is this something that you'll do with all of your firms ultimately, is that the plan?
Doug Hammond
Yes. Our planning process, I mean, there are really several approaches to it. Every one of our firms is unique and not all firms will engage with us in the planning process because they are free into [ph] their agreements not to, but we have seen a very high demand as we roll out this initiative of firms that are lining up in queue and demanding to have the resource first. So, we will obviously allocate our resources internally based on where we think we can have the biggest impact so we're prioritizing what we're doing internally while at the same time rolling out our initiative on a much larger scale to provide the resource ultimately to all the firms.
Andrew Kligerman – UBS
And then, just on the life settlements area, it's amazing to hear that, I guess, the revenues from life settlements were down 40% year over year. Could you talk about the run rate of that? I mean, should we expect that sort of 40% year-over-year decline throughout the balance of the year and into part of next year? When does that sort of level out on a year-over-year basis?
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