...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.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833671,00.html
И эта пирамида тоже лопнула, в 1970. Часть руководства (правда, не сам Берни) банально сбежала с деньгами. Сам Берни в целом отделался лёгким испугом: он отсидел всего год в швейцарской тюрьме, и затем был оправдан в США (видимо, осталось достатоцгхно денег чтобы дать нужным людям). Неплохо жил до 1995, одно время сожительствовал с известной "Голливудксой мадам" Хайди Фляйсс.
Его некролог в NYTimes:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7DF113AF931A35750C0A963958260
