The way I interpreted it, Bud said he was going to help the cleaning company. I believed he mentioned buying assets and vans and I'm sure he used Gekkos money due to the very recent conversation where Gekko said he can do whatever he wants with his new money from a gold sale iirc

Bud probably used his own money but since he was stealing info for both him and gekko to use it didn't matter. He didn't need to invest more than 50 or 60k , which was peanuts to pay for the info he could get to. Bud made 800k in Hong Kong gold so he was clearly a millionare by that point

Investing in the cleaning company wouldn't have automatically given him access to customers' facilities. Bud was obviously breaking rules (and laws).
Clearly. With the cleaning company as a front Bud could have gotten in the door by posing as someone there to clean the office. Of course when he goes into file cabinets and takes pictures of financial statements that is a pretty serious offense.

Investing in the cleaning company wouldn't have automatically given him access to customers' facilities. Bud was obviously breaking rules (and laws).
Fowler's knots? Did you say fowler's knots?

The uniform would not have been enough. He would have needed access to the offices he was entering and that would have required being part of the company.

Bud invests in the office cleaning company
He may not have invested in the cleaning company. He could have used the visit with the owner as an opportunity to "borrow" a uniform on his way out.
Fowler's knots? Did you say fowler's knots?

no i think by that point in the movie Bud had made enough of his own money piggybacking on deals with Gekko to make an "investment" in the cleaning company with his own money. he probably invested like $25,000 or so which was chump change for Bud by that point in the movie. i don't think he'd be withdrawing funds from a customer's account (even Gekko's) and using them for anything other than stock purchases - it wouldn't be appropriate or legal and the optics would be bad.