Baron Conference

Several months ago, we attended the Baron Investment Conference in New York City and we want to share what we heard and learned.  Each year, Ron Baron and his team host this one day investment conference for investment advisors and large shareholders.  There is an educational component, as well as networking and entertainment pieces.  More on these later.   

Many of you own Baron Funds.  Baron is a little different than most of the other mutual fund companies.  First of all, it is much smaller.  Baron manages less than $100 billion compared to a T Rowe Price or a Vanguard at over $1 trillion.  The smaller overall size obviously means smaller fund sizes – which opens up different possibilities.   Although Baron clearly partners with large institutional investors like pension funds, it also has a very active Family Advisor Practice to work with smaller advisories like us.  Secondly, Baron has only actively managed funds – no index funds.  The expenses are obviously higher for actively managed funds but we continue to believe there is good return for this additional cost. 

Now back to the conference.  The large shareholder educational “track” featured CEOs from some of the companies that Baron’s smaller and newer funds are betting on.  This year’s featured companies included 2U Inc, Choice Hotels, and Iridium. These Baron capital infusions are meant to create long-term partnerships so the CEOs can then go run their businesses.  The advisor “track” included panel discussions with portfolio managers.  Marci and I enjoyed the sessions with the managers of Baron Discovery and Baron Opportunity.  These managers talked about their growth strategies and how they assess companies.  We also heard from the management teams from Baron International Growth and Baron Realty.  These groups had a tough 2018 (uh yeah) and we all look forward to seeing better results as the market improves.  Everyone made sure they heard this 😊.

And then there is the fun part.  Normally there is musical entertainment I am told, but this year the entertainment was all comedy - guessing the Baron leaders decided everyone could use a bit of levity.  The featured surprise performer was Billy Crystal who still is one of the greatest impersonators of all time.