US securities regulators have opened an investigation into Guggenheim Partners’s asset management arm that includes questions about an $85m home in Malibu, California, co-owned by Guggenheim chief executive Mark Walter, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, three of these people said, has shown interest in that real estate transaction and a series of other deals involving ABS Capital, a Miami firm owned by two former Guggenheim managers.