The Return of Bernie Cornfeld

Few salesmen leave their jobs just because the boss does not take their advice on company policy, but Bernard Cornfeld is no ordinary salesman. Nine years ago, he told his bosses at Manhattan's Investors Planning Corp., a mutual-fund sales firm, that they ought to expand overseas. The bosses said no; Cornfeld quit. He went overseas himself, set up a company that began by selling mutual-fund shares to G.I.s, has since become the largest mutual-fund sales organization outside the U.S. Last week Cornfeld closed a nostalgic deal to get back into the U.S. mutual-fund field--by buying the company he once quit. Stockholders of Investors Planning (1964 sales: $100 million), one of the nation's top ten fund sales firms, agreed to sell out to Cornfeld's Geneva-based Investors Overseas Services for just over $2,000,000 in cash and stock.

Lavish Living. After its start at selling to G.I.s, Cornfeld's Investors Overseas soon spread out to sell to Europeans, has now expanded globally into more than 100 nations. Sales doubled annually from the start, but Investors Overseas really hit its stride in 1962 after Cornfeld launched what he calls the Fund of Funds, which is composed entirely of shares in 16 other mutual funds and management companies. By reinvesting its profits ($1,600,000 last year), Investors Overseas has expanded far beyond mutual funds. It has acquired two life-insurance companies with policies of more than $200 million in force, banks in Geneva, Nassau and Luxembourg with combined assets of $21 million, a data-processing firm and other investment services for 80,000 clients from Amsterdam to Ankara. This complex is growing faster than ever. After reaching $300 million for all of 1964, I.O.S. sales have shot up 91% -- to $106 million -- just during the first quarter of 1965.

All this has nicely enriched life for Istanbul-born, Brooklyn-reared Bernie Cornfeld, a mild-mannered bachelor of 37 who does not look as if he would ever talk back to his boss. He drives a Lancia Flaminia convertible, sails a 42-ft. Corsair, owns a ski lodge and a castle in France and lives in a lavish villa in suburban Geneva with two Great Danes and a Chinese houseman. He decorates his penthouse office with red silk Empire furnishings and swarms of attractive, multilingual secretaries, trains and entertains his worldwide force of 2,000 salesmen with everything from art lectures to cocktail parties in a 50-room lakeside mansion.

Bright & Young. Cornfeld keeps his empire growing by surrounding himself with bright young executives (average age: 36), who are attracted by stock options so lavish that 300 of his key people own 82% of Investors Overseas; Cornfeld's 18% interest has a book value of $2,973,600. By introducing similar stock options to Investors Planning, Cornfeld expects to give the U.S. fund enough fresh thrust to expand it from a regional mid-Atlantic fund into a nationwide operation. Investors Planning will keep its name and its management, which is headed by Cornfeld's old boss, Walter Benedick, 67. Benedick is remarkably happy about the whole deal. "We weren't interested in just anyone taking over," he says. "Cornfeld grew up with our philosophy."

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