Spitzer to Set Up Real Estate Fund?

Want to work for Eliot Spitzer?

The putatively disgraced ex-governor of New York is looking to start a real estate-focused "vulture fund" that invests in projects valued between $100 million and $500 million, the New York Sun reports, citing an unnamed source. Late last month, Spitzer reportedly met with national labor union chieftans to lay the groundwork for attracting union pension funds to invest in the new venture.

Such a move would mark a return to Spitzer's family roots. His father, Bernard, built a real estate empire that includes several prominent Manhattan residential and commercial buildings. However, the Sun says the elder Spitzer's property holdings "have not changed significantly since the early 1990s."

Eliot Spitzer "is seeking to leverage the reputation of his father's business as a successful manager of real estate assets," the paper observes. "In approaching the national labor unions, he is also trading on the goodwill he earned in that sector during his days as attorney general, when he was known as the scourge of Wall Street."

The former governor reportedly told the labor leaders it's a relief to be out of public office. He said sympathetic strangers - especially Europeans - have assured him that visiting prostitutes is "no big deal." Nevertheless, that particular deal has yet to close: federal prosecutors made no promises to secure Spitzer's resignation as governor, and they haven't said whether they will charge him with a crime.

Whether or not Spitzer's fund would hire be hiring staff wasn't known.