The year’s most exclusive media and tech gathering will have to settle for second best — at least when it comes to China’s biggest dealmakers.
Allen & Co.’s annual retreat at the famed Sun Valley Lodge in Idaho will be graced by Richard Liu, the founder and CEO of JD.com, the No. 2 online retailer in China.
He snagged an invite after raising $2 billion from American investors eager to tap China’s explosive growth even as US tech companies postponed going public because of rocky conditions.
While JD.com holds the current record for Chinese Internet IPOs, Jack Ma’s Alibaba will handily beat that next month with an offering that is expected to exceed $20 billion.
Ma, a martial arts fanatic, was invited to the weeklong shindig that kicks off Tuesday but has not confirmed his attendance. Still, Alibaba’s IPO will likely be a major topic of discussion at the retreat.
For now, the closest Sun Valley guests will get to Ma is Yahoo! Chief Executive Marissa Mayer.
Yahoo! holds a 23 percent stake in Alibaba, while Mayer is an active dealmaker in her own right with more than a dozen acquisitions in the past year.
The event is well known as the place where big deals are hatched, such as last year’s sale of the Washington Post to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos for $250 million.
And, as always, there will be plenty of deal talk near the resort’s famous Duck Pond. Harvey Weinstein of The Weinstein Co. will be seeking out deep-pocketed partners to take on his newly formed TV division, sources said.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav and Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter will arrive together after inking a TV deal. Vanity Fair is set to launch its first-ever series, “Vanity Fair Confidential,” on the Investigation Discovery network later this year.
The conference has skewed more heavily toward tech than media in recent years, with the industry hungry for acquisitions and IPOs.
Even so, there are some notable absences in the tech world.
Marc Andreessen, the outspoken venture capitalist who sits on the boards of Facebook and eBay, is bowing out this year. Perhaps he needs his rest following the successful battle he waged earlier this year with billionaire activist Carl Icahn over splitting PayPal from eBay. Andreesen claimed victory after Icahn backed down.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is confirmed to hobnob at the mountain resort, along with Eddie Cue, the Apple vice president and former confidant to the late Steve Jobs. But Apple’s newest addition, Jimmy Iovine of Beats Entertainment, will not be present, said a source
Also absent will be Microsoft co-founder and mega-philanthropist Bill Gates, once a regular on the Sun Valley circuit.
Indeed, the sole confirmed Microsoft attendee appears to be outgoing chief strategy officer Craig Mundie, who’s slated for retirement. Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella is not on the list.
Regardless, there will be plenty of power suits touching down, according to the list, including Google CEO Larry Page, 21st Century Fox’s Rupert Murdoch, Comcast’s Brian Roberts and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.