Michael Milken 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 trillion digital coin business.

Winnick is well aware of the optics of running up against his dad’s old partner and his own legacy. I knew Gary Winnick well before he died in 2003. He was a street smart salesman who became an entrepreneur in his post-Drexel life. He was a visionary who took chances. Many worked, some didn’t. (He was the chairman of the now-defunct Global Crossing)

Gary Winnick also never forgot his New York roots even while doing business in the more passive-aggressive environment of LA. People who worked with him recall his blunt, take-no-prisoners style.

I can see the old man in Adam as I hung out at Medici between sessions at Milken. He also sees parallels between his old man’s line of work and his current calling.

Junk bonds aren’t controversial these days; they’re used seamlessly in corporate financing, but that wasn’t always the case. Their controversial nature stemmed from their core utility of helping early stage companies circumvent the big NY banks for financing.

It is why the government took aim at Milken and Drexel, eventually putting the firm out of business and forcing Milken to take a deal where he served jail time for a series of what I would call victimless, non-criminal offenses.

Milken, of course, has since remade his life and career as a thought leader and philanthropist. He was pardoned by President Donald Trump during his first term.

Adam Winnick points out to me that crypto, like high yield, is often vilified in traditional finance circles, and until recently by securities regulators.

“I actually think crypto is much more hated than junk bonds ever were,” he tells me. “But digital assets are going to be way bigger than the high yield market ever was.”

How does he feel about going up against his dad’s old partner and boss with a competing conference?

“It helps to do my event at the same time, but it’s total counter programming,” Adam said, before quipping, “I also serve better food.”