The leaves are falling, the temperature's dropping, and Halloween is giving way to pre-Thanksgiving planning, so it must be time for thousands of mutual fund shareholders, financial advisors, and fundsters to converge on New York City's Upper West Side for some PM and CEO convos intermixed with surprise showbiz performances. It's all thanks to the chief of a 42-year-old, $43-billion-AUM, 19-fund, Gotham asset manager, and he's feeling good!

Ronald Stephen "Ron" Baron Baron Capital Founder, Chairman, CEO

Today, Ron Baron and his Baron Capital [profile] team hosted the 31st annual Baron Investment Conference, again at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. According to the Baron Capital team, more than 5,000 clients and FAs gathered for the event, this year themed "building legacy."

Per tradition, Baron's conference again featured surprise lunchtime performances and a surprise late afternoon performance. This time, the stars were singer songwriter Michael Bublé, Hollywood actress and singer Cynthia Erivo, country music singer Carrie Underwood, and the cast of the Broadway musical Suffs.

Earlier in the day, fund investors and advisors heard some the chiefs of several Baron Funds portfolio companies. Those speakers included: chairman and CEO Henry Fernandez of MSCI; CEO Frank Fertitta and vice chairman Lorenzo Fertitta of Red Rock Resorts; president and CEO Lee Shavel of Verisk Analytics; and president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX.

(One notable absence at today's event was Shotwell's boss: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. While Musk has spoken at multiple Baron Investment Conference in years past, given Baron Funds' investments in both Tesla and SpaceX, these days he is reportedly busy getting a head start on his new volunteer government job. Yet a Tesla Optimus, aka a Tesla Bot, did "guard" outside the Baron event, and there were three Tesla Model S cars as door prizes.)

Today was the first Baron Investment Conference after several big leadership changes five months ago at the Big Apple fund firm. On June 3, 41-year company veteran Linda Martinson stepped down as president and chief operating officer, switching to an advisory role. Also that day, David Baron and Michael Baron, both VPs and portfolio managers (and sons of Ron), both become co-presidents of the firm. And Rachel Stern, an alumna of FactSet and a six-year independent director of Baron Capital, succeeded Martinson as COO.

Michael Baron and David Baron took charge of today's afternoon sessions with Baron Capital team members, and Stern also featured. Yet it was firm founder Ron Baron who gave the closing speech, as per usual.

"When I founded this Firm in 1982, I did so with the idea of building legacy, giving middle class Americans the opportunity to participate in this country's growth through investments for their families," Ron Baron states today. "We also invest in companies whose leaders are building a legacy of their own such as the exceptional, talented, and visionary executives who spoke at our conference today." 

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