Allen & Co. bid relaxation goodbye

Each July for 16 years running, guardians of some of America’s largest corporate fortunes gathered almost unnoticed in Sun Valley as investment banker Herb Allen’s guests to talk deals, mergers and contemplate the future business climate.

At any given minute, Allen’s guests made Sun Valley one of the world’s great concentrations of corporate power and wealth, equivalent to the Gross Domestic Product of most small nations.

The week-long gathering was in an idyllic setting –laid-back Sun Valley and Ketchum, where tycoons could elude the daily spotlight and not be hounded by the business media or star-struck autograph freaks.

That seems to have changed.

Allen‘s summer camp for this year’s business bigwigs was besieged by a new phenomenon – a press corps swarming for stories.

Big remote broadcast trucks with their tell-tale rooftop satellite dishes rolled onto the Sun Valley Resort's property. Lights, cameras, boom mikes and tech crews sprouted on once-tranquil lawns.

Reporters from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Financial Times, Daily Variety, the New York Daily News, Bloomberg News, USA TODAY, the Guardian, Business Week magazine, CNN, CNBC and Bloomberg TV cornered Allen’s guests and peppered them with questions, even during bathroom breaks.

Townsfolk, however, shrugged off the presence of stars of corporate America, accustomed as they are to routinely seeing celebrities and zillionaires.

Even the presence of 50 corporate jets at Friedman Memorial Airport didn’t raise the pulse of manager Rick Baird, as he contemplated tax revenues from thousands of gallons of jet fuel sold to the corporate visitors.

This is Herb Allen’s show, for which he’s rumored to spend $10 million each year hosting the corporate titans and their families.

My guess, however, is that Allen may have second thoughts about such a gaggle of reporters engulfing his summer conference.

If enough attendees tell Allen they felt badgered, Allen surely will make the media less welcome and his guests less accessible next year.

Their wealth and power notwithstanding, corporate chieftains don’t have a carefree life. They fret about quarterly profits, roller-coaster stock gyrations, government regulators, employee unrest, consumer dissatisfaction, lawsuits, and whether directors may turn on them.

A week in Sun Valley with peers to escape all that is about as good as it gets for men and women at the turbulent eye of the corporate storm.

What a pity if the renowned amiability of the Wood River Valley were to be replaced by a boisterous gauntlet of media that robs Allen & Co. guests of a few moments of freedom to relax.