Allen Co Inc

Security is tight at investment bank Allen & Co.'s annual conference. Held at the tony Sun Valley Resort nestled in the northern Rocky Mountains, the fairly secretive gathering of media kingpins, technology geniuses, billionaire investors, politicians and even the occasional star athlete also is filled with moonlighting detectives and retired police officers watching everyone and everything like a hawk. One question: What exactly are they guarding?

Kobe Bryant may have four championship rings, but it's the Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James who wrangled an invitation to hobnob with moguls at this week's Allen & Co. media-industry conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. James, who already has ties to the New York investment bank and is busy building his own empire, will be in good company.

Dozens of influential women arrived here last week in private jets to attend billionaire investment banker Herbert Allen's annual media and technology conference. But for the most part, it was their husbands who received the invitations and grabbed the headlines. This year, as every year, the accomplishments and pet causes of their wives took second billing.

When some two dozen rafts barrel down the Salmon River on Wednesday, New York investment banker Herbert Allen will be in his ceremonial post at the head of the caravan. Guides accompanying the other 200 or so captains of industry and their families will be under strict orders not to pass the 64-year-old billionaire host and the handpicked favorites on his raft.

Here's a collection of snapshots, potshots and words from a few hotshots attending the 21st annual Allen & Co. conference, a gathering of media moguls and other business leaders that ended here late Saturday: * Malone's the Favorite Bets are on cable mogul John Malone. The chairman of Liberty Media Corp. recently struck a mega-deal, plunking down $7.9 billion to control QVC, the hugely profitable home shopping cable network best known for selling flashy fake diamonds.