Meriwether chose to start a hedge fund to avoid the financial regulation imposed on more traditional investment vehicles, such as mutual funds, as established by the Investment Company Act of 1940—funds which accepted stakes from 100 or fewer individuals each with more than $1 million in net worth were exempt from most of the regulations that bound other investment companies. In late 1993, Meriwether approached several high-net-worth individuals in an effort to secure start-up capital for Long-Term Capital Management, among them, Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. Both analyzed the company but considered the leverage plan to be risky. With the help of Merrill Lynch, LTCM secured hundreds of millions of dollars from business owners, celebrities and even private university endowments and later the Italian central bank. The bulk of the money, however, came from companies and individuals connected to the financial industry. By 24 February 1994, the day LTCM began trading, the company had amassed just over $1.01 billion in capital.