Media & Insights

Michael Milken has been described as man who has played an “outsized role” in American life. Yet even this seems an understatement for the 72-year-old Wall Street financier-turned-­philan­thropist.

The rapid rise of personalised medicine and associated better pricing for health insurance cover flowing from cutting-edge technologies such as genomics will provide exciting new investment opportunities, according to one of the ­nation’s top global equities managers.

One of Australia's most successful fund managers, Peter Cooper, first tried meditation about 30 years ago when he was incredibly stressed out. He picked up a book, sat in a room and tried to focus.

Speedcast International affirmed guidance of $US155 million only last May. But announcing its half-year results on Tuesday, that guidance fell by at least $US10 million, sending its shares crashing 37.4 per cent.

Riding the technology wave as an investment strategy can be a highly effective way to avoid the buffeting winds of uncertainties such as trade policy, says Regal Funds Management's Philip King.

The Australian public will get the opportunity to bankroll the best investment ideas from leading local and international fund managers while supporting medical research, in a new $100 million listed investment company.

Sydney's most illustrious hedge funds – Caledonia, Regal and VGI Partners – have topped the charts with the best-performing stock picks at the 2017 Sohn Hearts and Minds charity conference.

Geopolitical tension, soaring debt and the withdrawal of support by central banks are top of mind issues for investors, according to high profile businessman and director Gary Weiss.

Star American philanthropist Michael Milken will make his first visit to Australia in almost a decade next month as part of a fresh push by the leaders of the annual Sohn Hearts & Minds investment conference to increase corporate support for medical research.

Mr Milken, the man credited with pioneering the high-yield bond market in the 1980s will speak at two events held in Sydney and Melbourne in September as a curtain raiser to the Sohn Hearts & Minds Investment Leaders conference.

Former prime minister Paul Keating's prediction that the bull market can be pierced by a "Minsky moment"-style collapse has an element of truth, economists agree, but will be almost impossible to avert.

Investors of today were “investing in the age of longevity,” UK entrepreneur and philanthropist, Jim Mellon, told the Sohn Hearts & Minds conference yesterday.

At the Sohn Hearts & Minds conference held in Sydney on Friday leading fund managers from Australia and around the world share their best investment ideas to raise millions of dollars for medical research. Here are a selection of the top tips:

Australia must diversify its economy away from coal exports to thrive in a modern economy as renewable energy costs plummet and investment in new coal-fired plants falls to zero, inventor and former Microsoft executive Ramez Naam, warned yesterday.

It costs $3000 to attend, but few along at Sydney’s second Sohn Hearts & Minds Investment Leaders Conference would say it was anything but a bargain. The event moves the market.

If you had to short one of the FANG four – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet) – which one would it be? And if you could only own one for the next five to 10 years, which company would you pick?

If you had to short one of the FANG four – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet) – which one would it be? And if you could only own one for the next five to 10 years, which company would you pick?

The AFR shares some of the best ideas from the 2017 Sohn Hearts & Minds Conference

The rising importance of technology was the key theme of the second annual Sohn Hearts & Minds conference yesterday with Google a clear favourite because of its leadership role in artificial intelligence.

Heart surgeon Nikki Stamp cut straight to the point when she opened the 2017 Sohn Hearts & Minds investment conference in Sydney with the blunt declaration "we're all here to make money".

It costs $3000 to attend, but few along at Sydney’s second Sohn Hearts & Minds Investment Leaders Conference would say it was anything but a bargain.

Some of the market's top experts claim that investors are underestimating how the accelerated pace of technological disruption will affect investment returns.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has slammed the Turnbull Government’s foreign policy as “barren” with no new ideas except to fall in line with US policy, while China was well on the way to becoming the world’s largest economy.

Philanthropic donations will play an increasing role in funding medical research in Australia, ­according to Bob Graham, executive director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute.

Anticipation is positively febrile ahead of the second Sohn Hearts & Minds conference at Sydney's Opera House on Friday.

A day after ride-sharing company Uber agreed to sell $US10 billion in shares as the precursor to a stockmarket listing, one of Silicon Valley's rising stars claimed the Uber investors were about 10 years too late.

The architect of compulsory superannuation, former prime minister Paul Keating, has warned against the government wresting control of default contributions from the private sector, saying it would probably be a temporary move before a monopoly was sold back to the public.

The Paul Ramsay Foundation is tipping the first $10 million into a new "fund" that will track the top picks to come out of next week's Sohn Hearts & Minds conference.

The charitable foundation of the late billionaire healthcare entrepreneur Paul Ramsay is set to back a novel investment product launched to capitalise on interest in the ideas of the top stock pickers presenting at the Sohn Hearts & Minds conference next week.

Auscap Asset Management founder Tim Carleton was overseas on holidays last year when he heard of Britain’s vote to leave the EU.

Jim Mellon describes himself as an "opportunistic, competent, plagiarist" investor. "I'll take anyone's ideas," says the man that has often been described as Britain's version of Warren Buffet.

Melbourne-based fund manager Peter Cooper has a simple formula for picking stocks — a pathway of value options with people he trusts — and he applies the same formula around the world.

On 30 September, 2008, the US National Debt clock installed at New York's Times Square ran out of numbers as it ticked over $US10 trillion. In the midst of the worst financial crisis of a generation, that moment came to symbolise the alarming lack of control over public finances that would lead the Western world to doom.

One of Asia's leading hedge fund investors says institutions will only embrace cryptocurrencies once they can get comfort their holdings can't be stolen by hackers.

The Capital Group is one of the oldest and most successful asset managers in the world. Founded in 1931, it has accumulated $1.5 trillion of assets by beating the market with an intense devotion to rigorous research.

To be successful at picking Australian stocks, Greencape Capital's Matt Ryland says you have to travel with the world.

Richard Goyder, who heads one of the nation’s most generous corporates, Wesfarmers, says that working with the community is more important than it has ever been. But he says the challenge is to “make the (philanthropy) money more efficient”.

Jim Mellon is on his balcony in Ibiza, talking about the joys of a long and healthy life. At 60, he’s only halfway through what he expects will be commonplace pretty soon – an average lifespan of 110 or 120 years.

Facebook and Google are the most “over-owned” stock on the planet but could easily halve in value, British billionaire Jim Mellon believes.

The next wave of successful tech start-ups will be those that can modernise lumbering corporate giants, governments and the healthcare sector, according to prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.

Kerr Neilson has cemented his reputation as one of Australia's top investors, triumphing in the Sohn Hearts & Minds charity stock picking competition.

Watch Professor Bob Graham, Executive Director at Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute chat live on Sky News about Sohn Hearts & Minds.

Macquarie Investment Management's head of equities Patrick Hodgens says his most successful stock pick was buying Macquarie Group almost 25 years ago but last year he identified another big winner: New Zealand telco Chorus.

Sydney businessman Gary Weiss admits to being uncertain last year about whether New York’s Sohn conference, where fund managers give their investment tips to raise money for medical charities, would work in Australia.

Apologies to Caledonia's chairman Mark Nelson – his best investors were somewhat miffed to read on Tuesday morning that his best investors had gathered at the Art Gallery of NSW on Monday evening to hear from Challenger CEO Brian Benario and Zillow boss Spencer Rascoff. Their invites said Tuesday night!

The stock-picking luminaries at this year’s Sohn Australia Hearts & Minds investment leaders’ conference didn’t need to grab investors by the delicate bits to lure them to the sunlit uplands: judging from Monday’s share reaction, punters readily followed their expert advice.

It's time to roll the dice on Macau again, says star Hong Kong fund manager John Ho of Janchor Partners. After a six-year boom and bust in the gaming colony, casino operators will benefit from the rise of the mass market tourists from China that will deliver sustainable growth in cash flows, Mr Ho told the audience at the Hearts & Minds Investment conference on Friday.

Investors seeking the one pearl of wisdom to come out of the gathering in Sydney on Friday attended by several hundred outstanding fund managers can forget about the wisdom of crowds.

Chicago small-cap specialist Leah Zell has recommended BIM, Turkey’s answer to Aldi, as her stock pick for the first Sohn Hearts & Minds conference in Sydney yesterday. Ms Zell, who founded Lizard Investors, was the only fund manager to recommend a stock based in Europe during the day of stock recommendations.

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has depicted the election of Donald Trump as US president as the predictable result of the breakdown of global capitalism.

Howard Marks says the "jury is out" as to what the shock election of Donald Trump as US president means for the economy and financial markets.

The five most provocative investment ideas from top fund managers the Sohn Hearts & Minds conference.

The fund manager who made a five-fold return on investment from backing Chinese internet retail giant Alibaba is now making a long term bet on Medibank Private.

The global investment charity event, set up in memory of a young Wall Street trader that died of cancer, has formed a partnership the Hearts & Minds Investment Leaders event which was inspired by New York's world famous investment event.

The thought of Victor Chang ­Research Institute executive ­director Bob Graham kissing New Zealand-born businessman Gary Weiss just boggles the mind.

Mr Grounds argues that next month's Hearts & Minds Investors Leaders Conference – at which top global and local fund managers will share their best investment ideas with attendees – recognises that investors can no longer hope to make money simply from a rising market.

Magellan Financial group chief executive Hamish Douglass has a cardinal rule — no stock tips.

Charities need to rethink how they raise funds and give something back to donors, particularly well-heeled ones, rather than it just being a one-way street, says Monash University chancellor and former AMP chairman Simon McKeon.

Shane Finemore's journey from country New South Wales to running a multi-billion dollar global hedge fund is an Australian investment success story.

Don't write the obituaries of Australia's hobbling media giants just yet. That's the message from Edgar Lee, a senior portfolio manager of Oaktree, and former Nine Entertainment board member.

Chicago-born fund manager Leah Zell started her career as an academic but soon decided to “join the family business” and ­become an investor.

US investor Howard Marks was at an economics conference in the US recently and, as he tells it, making fun of economic forecasting.

Legendary fund manager Howard Marks has some sage advice to investors that are struggling to find bargains in a world of inflated asset prices – "it's tough but you have to stick with your creed".

Sohn Hearts & Minds, a new investment conference on the block, attracts the who's who to raise money for medical research.

James Daggar-Nickson interviews Scott Bessent following his keynote at the 2018 Sohn Hearts & Minds Conference.

The Sohn Hearts & Minds Conference is an annual one-day event which brings the investment community together for philanthropic purpose.