Allen & Company LLC

Type: Private

For Allen & Company, there's no business like financing show business. The investment bank serves variously as investor, underwriter, and broker to some of the biggest names in entertainment, technology, and information. Viewed as something of a secret society, the firm has had a quiet hand in such hookups as Seagram (now part of Vivendi) and Universal Studios, Hasbro and Galoob Toys, and Disney and Capital Cities/ABC. The notoriously secretive firm's famous annual retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, attracts more moguls than a double-black ski run (Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and Oprah Winfrey have attended). Brothers Herbert and Charles Allen founded the company in 1922.

Officers:
Non-Executive Chairman: Donald R. (Don) Keough
President: Investment Banking

Competitors:
Goldman Sachs
Jefferies Group
Lazard