Company Town : The Stormy Gathering at Sun Valley

Last summer, at New York investment banker Herbert A. Allen Jr.’s elite annual conference in Sun Valley, Ida., Seagram Co. Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. was photographed for Vanity Fair magazine among a group of entertainment and media titans that included News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, Viacom Inc.’s Sumner Redstone and Tele-Communications Inc.’s John Malone.

But at the time, unlike his high-powered associates, Bronfman, a one-time producer and songwriter who has long had a love affair with Hollywood, was not a big-time owner of a major entertainment empire. Not that Seagram’s 15% ownership stake in Time Warner is chopped liver. But let’s face it, it ain’t MCA.

This year, Bronfman will be one of various heavyweights--including Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Disney’s Michael Eisner--who will deliver corporate presentations to other industry leaders and major institutional investors at next month’s conference, which runs July 11-15.

Sources say Bronfman plans to talk about the motivating reasons behind Seagram’s 80% acquisition of MCA--basically the same spiel he’s given numerous times since agreeing to buy the company in April. One source said Hollywood’s latest mogul will not , however, discuss his plans or strategy for the entertainment company. That means no talk about new senior management, which MCA is still in need of following Bronfman’s futile attempt to land Michael Ovitz for the lead role.

Allen is the key Wall Street middleman in many of Hollywood’s most important merger and acquisition mega-deals, including Matsushita’s MCA buy and Sony’s purchase of Columbia/TriStar five years ago. Through his privately held Wall St. firm, Allen & Co., he helped spearhead Seagram’s $5.7-billion purchase of MCA. (He also assisted Bronfman in Seagram’s investment in Time Warner.)

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In the months before his conference last year, much to the chagrin of Redstone, Allen had advised then-QVC Chief Executive Barry Diller in his failed rival bid for Paramount Pictures.

Diller and Redstone are regulars at the annual Sun Valley gathering (now in its 12th year), as are Murdoch, Malone, Gates, Ted Turner, Sony’s Michael P. Schulhof, Dream Teamers David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg (Steven Spielberg is in Europe and won’t be there this year), Time Warner’s Gerald Levin, Coca-Cola’s Roberto Goizueta and billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Motion Picture Assn. of America President Jack Valenti, who each year moderates “The Entertainment Seminar” at the conference, assures that there will be some “very lively discussion” during this year’s 2 1/2-hour session on July 14. Panelists include Malone, Redstone, Turner, Diller, Katzenberg, Warner Bros. co-Chairman Terry Semel, MCA Motion Picture Group Chairman Tom Pollock and NBC President Bob Wright.

Valenti recalls things getting lively last year when Redstone defended the cable industry against new technologies taking over the future.

While he has not yet worked out a definite agenda, he said he expects the topics this year to include the alliance between the Baby Bells and the entertainment industry and what that portends, and the impact of “navigational systems,” such as the digitally operated service centers of 1,000 programs that companies such as Time Warner are experimenting with.

With the world’s most important magnates from the fast-converging worlds of telecommunications, entertainment and media gathered, there’s sure to be some discussion about pending federal legislation that would create new competition in the telecommunications and cable industries.

Also sure to be discussed, said Valenti, is Sen. Bob Dole’s recent indictment of the entertainment industry for making “morally depraved” movies and records. Valenti wrote an op-ed piece for The Times earlier this month in which he criticized Dole for his remarks.

The format of the conference--from which the press is barred--is half-business, half-play. From 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., guests attend company presentations, panels and workshops; afternoons are spent on extracurricular activities with their families that include rafting, fly-fishing, skeet and trap shooting, tennis, biking and swimming.

Getting attendees to talk about the conference, even in the most general terms, is like trying to pry top-secret information out of a CIA agent.

“I can’t help you on this one,” is a typical response from one of the many Allen devotees who must have to sign a blood oath with the influential host to not speak to the press.

This year’s conference could prove to be incredibly dishy because so many of the participants are at war with each other.

“This is going to be like some bad family reunion,” said one Hollywood insider.

For starters, you have the feuding Eisner and Geffen, not to mention Eisner and Katzenberg. The already stinging relationship between Geffen and Eisner was recently made worse when the billionaire music mogul divulged his deepest, darkest feelings about the Disney tycoon to Los Angeles magazine Editor Robert Sam Anson.

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Then you have Ovitz, Time Warner’s Levin and Warner Bros.’ Semel, who, the betting goes, won’t be bunking together.

And there’s some speculation, though those close to Ovitz deny it, that the failed deal between him and Bronfman has made for some uneasy feelings at best.

In any case, it sure would be fun to be a fly on the property.

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Preliminary list of corporate executives planning to attend Sun Valley Conference 1995:

Advance Ross Corp. Harve A. Ferrill Chairman and chief executive

Amelior Foundation Raymond G. Chambers Chairman

Archer Daniels Midland Co. Dwayne O. Andreas Chairman and chief executive Howard G. Buffett Vice president and assistant to the chairman

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Warren E. Buffet Chairman and chief executive

CUC International Inc. Walter A. Forbes Chairman and chief executive

Capital Cities/ABC Inc. Thomas S. Murphy Chairman and chief executive

Castle Rock Entertainment Alan F. Horn Chairman and chief executive

Chemical Banking Corp. James B. Lee Jr. Senior managing director

Coca-Cola Co. Roberto C. Goizueta Chairman and chief executive M. Douglas Ivester President and chief operating officer James E. Chestnut Senior vice president and chief financial officer

Comsat Video Enterprises Inc. Charles Lyons President

Cox Enterprises Inc. James C. Kennedy Chairman and chief executive

Creative Artists Agency Inc. Michael S. Ovitz Chairman

Dreamworks SKG David Geffen Jeffrey Katzenberg

Eastman Kodak Co. George M.C. Fisher Chairman, president and chief executive

GTE Corp. Charles R. Lee Chairman and chief executive

Intel Corp. Andrew S. Grove President and chief executive

Island Records Inc. Christopher P. Blackwell Chairman and chief executive

Jim Henson Productions Inc. Charles H. Rivkin Chief operating officer

Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc. Edgar Bronfman Jr. President and chief executive

Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts & Co. Henry R. Kravis Founding partner

Liberty Media Corp. Peter R. Barton President and chief executive

Microsoft Corp. Bill Gates Chairman and chief executive

Motion Picture Assn. of America Jack Valenti President and chief executive

NBC Inc. Robert C. Wright President and chief executive Tom Brokaw Anchor-managing editor, “NBC Nightly News”

Nynex-New York Richard A. Jalkut President and group executive, Nynex Telecommunications

News Corp. Rupert Murdoch Chairman and chief executive David F. DeVoe Chief financial officer

Nike Inc. Philip H. Knight Chairman and chief executive

PolyGram International Ltd. Alain M. Levy President and chief executive

Questor Partners Jay Alix Managing general partner Melvyn N. Klein General partner, GKH Dan W. Lufkin General partner

Saban Entertainment Haim Saban Chairman

Savoy Pictures Entertainment Inc. Victor A. Kaufman Chairman and chief executive Lewis J. Korman President and chief operating officer

Sony Corp. of America Michael P. Schulhof President and chief executive Jeffrey Sagansky Executive vice president

Suntrust Banks Inc. James B. Williams Chairman and chief executive

Tele-Communications Inc. John C. Malone President and chief executive

Ticketmaster Fredric D. Rosen President and chief executive

Time Warner Inc. Michael J. Fuchs Chairman, Home Box Office Chairman, Warner Music Group Terry S. Semel Chairman and co-chief executive, Warner Bros. Inc.

Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. Ted Turner Chairman Scott M. Sassa President, Turner Entertainment Group

United Asset Management Corp. Norton H. Reamer President

Universal Pictures Thomas P. Pollock Chairman, MCA Motion Picture Group

Viacom Inc. Sumner M. Redstone Chairman H. Wayne Huizenga Vice chairman Chairman, Blockbuster Entertainment Group Frank J. Biondi Jr. President and chief executive Steven R. Berrard Chief executive, Blockbuster Entertainment Group

Vulcan Northwest Paul G. Allen Chief executive

Walt Disney Co. Michael D. Eisner Chairman and chief executive Stephen F. Bollenbach Senior executive vice president and chief financial officer Sanford M. Litvack Senior executive vice president and chief of corporate operations Joseph E. Roth Chairman, Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group

World Film Services Inc. John Heyman Chairman

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