MichaelMilken summit rival has unique ties to famed Junk Bond King
This week’s Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills faced a little competition – and it came from someone with an interesting connection to the famed high-profile investment bank that made Michael Milken a Wall Street legend, On The Money has learned.Milken, now a philanthropist and investor, made history by creating the high yield or junk bond market at Drexel Burnham Lambert back in the 1980s.It’s where he earned the moniker “Junk Bond King.”Milken and his team were among the most innovative financiers ever.
Their so-called junk bonds, or high-yield debt, were used to finance some of the biggest companies when they were in their formative stages and turn them into corporate behemoths.He did have some help along the way.His partner in building Drexel into a powerhouse investment bank was the late Gary Winnick, a former furniture salesman from Roslyn, on Long Island, who moved his family west to work in Drexel’s Beverly Hills office and emerged as one of the best junk-bond salesmen in the business.These days, Winnick’s son, 49-year-old Adam Winnick, has been quietly making a name for himself in the burgeoning crypto business as an investor and thought leader.
He has a competing conference – the Medici Network — also taking place this week, one that is more intimate than the sprawling Milken Global affair but is attracting its own A-list group of influencers looking for investment insights..Panels on the underlying blockchain technology, various new crypto related investments and the changing regulatory environment are all featured a few miles from the Milken summit right in Beverly Hills.Winnick has been hosting the four-day event, which ends Thursday, for the past eight years.
It started small but now attracts a couple hundred people, mostly by invite.Full disclosure: I was a panel moderator at Milken, but I also spoke at Medici and can attest to the relevancy of its agenda, particularly as the Trump administration embraces the $3 ...