ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Bernard Cornfeld

Bernard Cornfeld was a businessman who started a company called Investors Overseas Services (IOS) in the 1960s. This company helped people invest their money in different countries around the world.

Imagine you have some candies and you want to share them with your friends who live far away. Bernard Cornfeld's company helped people who had some money to invest in different countries around the world. Just like you might send candies to your friends in different countries, Bernard Cornfeld helped people send their money to different countries and invest in different things, like companies or real estate.

But sometimes, people didn't know where their money was actually being invested, or how much risk they were taking. This meant that the company might be doing things with their money that could be dangerous, but the people investing didn't know about it.

Just like you might tell your friends not to eat too many candies because they might make them sick, people were worried that Bernard Cornfeld's company might be doing things that would harm their investments. Eventually, the company had some problems and had to shut down, so it's important to always be cautious when investing your money.