Mutual Fund Sales People and a Little Graft

As a child growing up in Brooklyn, I had terrible allergies. I had an asthma attack when I was 5, so I took allergy shots almost every week until I was about 18. It’s debatable whether it actually improve my allergies or I just grew out of its severity.

So almost every Wednesday, I went to Dr. Apfel’s office for my weekly shot. It seemed quite often, there was a pharmaceutical salesman sitting in Dr. Apfel’s office bearing free samples and who knows what else.

Fast forward a few years later and I was working for a third party administration firm (TPA) that had its own advisory practice.  Instead of pharmaceutical salesman bearing free sample, we had mutual fund sales people meeting the client relationship managers who helped develop the fund lineups for our clients. The fund salespeople took our client relationship managers out to lunch and they were always bearing gifts including Yankees tickets. I remember being told that one fund salesperson came to our office and inquired what kind of gifts that our client relationship managers would want and I will never forget how one of them actually asked for a set of Callaway golf clubs. While I don’t think he got the clubs, I could have only imagined if he did.

Graft and bribery is a way of life and I’m sure sometimes that happens when selecting a fund lineup.

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