The Milken Institute Global Conference starts tomorrow with the theme "Celebrating the Power of Connection." Connections got "Junk Bond King" Michael Milken's criminal conviction scrubbed. There is no longer an official record of his committing major financial crimes, including securities fraud.
Carlyle Group co-founder and policy making billionaire David Rubenstein used his power of connection up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue while Carlyle's corporate office is a mere five blocks away.
The greed and leverage boys hold Milken up as a founding father. A smattering of private equity underwriters (PEU) will speak at the event. Carlyle has two speakers on the official agenda:
KKR has three speakers covering four events:
Blackstone will present at two sessions but will be absent from a housing session, where they've had a huge impact on rising rents, late fees and evictions through affiliate Invitation Homes.
A whistleblower lawsuit alleges Invitation cheated California cities/towns out of millions by not getting building permits for renovations.
Apollo Global Management has two speakers, co-founder Marc Rowan and Scott Kleinman. Rowan gets his own breakfast club session.
Themes for the event have included:
I suggest an underlying theme for the last few decades has been "Pardon me, but Greed is the way." What happens at California Davos often ends up in Congressional bills. Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one.
Update 5-2-22: Jesse's Cafe Americain noted the Nordic Flash Crash and commented:
Seriously, how can one expect a multi-billion dollar trading platform for a global financial institution to bother with any safeguards against potentially systemic critical 'typos.' LOL
The financial fourth estate was too busy swooning over the international cast attending the Michael Milken conference at the Beverly Hilton to be concerned about any of these market-busting, existential questions.
Update 5-5-22: The Lever reported "Politicians have cut secret deals funneling retirees’ savings to financial firms — but new legislation would finally let the public see the details."
Update 5-7-22: FT has a summary of Milk'em Global Conference. The greed and leverage boys are having a sphincter moment as fellow PEU Jay Powell stopped spiking their punch-bowl and is purported to be administering doses of Narcan.
Update 5-17-22: German Allianz SE agreed to pay $6 billion and plead guilty to securities fraud for its Structured Alpha funds. Reuters story stated "managers also inflated fund results to boost their pay through performance fees." If they follow the Milken game plan a pardon could be in their distant future.
