Investment: Cornfeld's Cornucopia

The conservative moneymen of Europe for years treated Bernard Cornfeld, the Brooklyn-bred magnate of mutual funds, as though he had financial halitosis. Many prophesied an early demise for his Investors Overseas Services, which flouted tradition and aggressively sold mutual funds to investors abroad, much as Fuller Brush men peddle house hold wares in the U.S. Now that the raff ish upstart has built I.O.S. assets to $1.8 billion, he has become too rich and powerful to deride. Investment hous es seek Cornfeld's favor, and continental bankers have begun imitating his sales methods. Last week I.O.S. brought out its first public offering of common stock, and eager investors abroad bid the shares to a large premium.

I.O.S. sold 11 million shares to Europeans, Canadians, employees and business friends. The shares, representing a 20% interest in I.O.S., were priced at $10, making the $110 million offering probably the largest equity issue ever floated outside the U.S. In the first day of over-the-counter trading, I.O.S. rose to $19 a share, then settled to $17 at week's end. At that level, the company had acquired a market value of some $935 million, and Cornfeld's own 15% holding had a paper worth of $140 million.

No shares were offered in the U.S., where the Securities and Exchange Commission does not permit Cornfeld to operate because he refuses to submit to normal SEC scrutiny. Nonetheless, a blue-ribbon team of U.S. and foreign investment bankers underwrote the issue. Led by Manhattan's Drexel Harrison Ripley, the syndicate included France's Banque Rothschild, Britain's Hill Samuel, and Manhattan's Smith, Barney.

Ocelots at Home. Bernie Cornfeld broke into the world's financial establishment by dint of supersalesmanship. He formed I.O.S. 13 years ago in a Paris flat after deciding that there were millions to be made in marketing mutual funds abroad. I.O.S. has since grown into the world's largest financial sales organization, with 13,000 salesmen and 750,000 clients in 110 countries.

Still a bachelor at 42, Cornfeld keeps a Paris apartment, a London townhouse and a 13th century chateau just across the Swiss border in France. His principal abode is a Geneva lakeside villa, where the household includes two ocelots, his Russian-born mother and often a covey of miniskirted proteges. Lately, the restless Cornfeld has turned over much of the day-to-day operation of I.O.S. to some of his millionaire aides. Cornfeld remains the chief, but he obviously hopes to convince the remaining skeptics that I.O.S. is something more than his private fief.