Invest For Kids Brings an "Unprecedented Lineup of Speakers" to Chicago

The fourth-annual Invest For Kids is right around the corner. At this year's November event, co-founder Ben Kovler promises that attendees will be treated to an "unprecedented lineup of speakers."

"All speaking with investible ideas, where all the money is going to children's charities in Chicago," Kovler told Benzinga this week. "And I think the important thing about these charities is that they are all getting plus or minus $150,000 each, a one-time gift, and these are groups with budgets on the smaller side, meaning $1 million to $2 million. So we're giving them an impact gift. It really moves the needle for them. They have a wide variety of causes but are heavily focused on education."

Kovler, who co-manages investments for his family office and family foundation in Chicago, co-founded Invest For Kids four years ago with Ron Levin.

"In year one, we outperformed the S&P by almost two-to-one," Levin, who serves as a Managing Director in the Private Wealth Management group at Goldman Sachs, told Benzinga. "In year two we were pretty close to even with the S&P. Thus far year-to-date we're way outperforming the S&P."

Why to Attend

"We've heard from many people that we have our best speaker lineup yet," said Kovler. "From guys like Nelson Peltz to Jim Grant, neither of which have spoken before, both of which present very unique ideas. Jeff Ubben from San Francisco. David Herro, a local Chicago mutual fund manager. Frank Brosens runs Taconic. Steve Mandel, who is sort of a legend in the stock-picking game.

"So we really have a diverse group of speakers, only two of which have been there before. And Kyle Bass, who is certainly well-known in the macro space from Texas, and people are very excited to hear what he has to say. He has been outspoken on China and a lot of the mortgage situation."

Kovler added that during last year's event, early market themes were introduced. "One of the big themes last year was that many of the managers were positive on housing and a housing recovery, long before it became a little bit more known and talked about -- before it was covered in Barron's," he said.

Further, Kovler said that Invest For Kids is a "great gathering of investment professionals that are not under the banner of one firm or another."

"If you're an investment professional or just an interested investor for yourself, there are a lot of benefits in coming to this conference," he said.

Make an Impact

During its first year, Invest For Kids sold out the Chase Auditorium and was attended by 500 investment professionals. The event raised roughly $800,000.

"We then moved it over to the Harris Theater," said Kovler. "We have slowly grown and built it up solidly ever since. Last year was our biggest year -- we had just over 750 people attend and raised just over $1.1 million."

Kovler and Levin hope to exceed both figures this year.

"We'd love to have between 800 and 900 people attend, and we'd love to raise in excess of $1.1 million," said Kovler. "The unique thing about the money raised is that Ron and I cover all the expenses, so it's 100 percent pass-through, so all the money raised goes out to children's charities.

"The conference itself is an investment conference. It benefits charity, and that's a nice side benefit -- that all the money goes to charity -- but people are attending for the investment content of the event. We have 10 hedge fund, mutual fund, financial figures. Each speaks for 15 minutes and each presents their best investment idea and their best investible idea and/or market view. But we try to make it very idea-focused so attendees leave with something very tangible to act on."

Looking Ahead

With regard to the future, Levin said that the Invest For Kids roadmap is both qualitative and quantitative.

"The long-term plan is pretty straightforward: to build this into the preeminent investment conference in the Midwest and one of the preeminent investment conferences in the United States," said Levin. "What that word 'preeminent' means is that it's something that people want to attend, look forward to attending, and feel like they received significant value from attending.

"The second objective of this conference is to make a significant impact on organizations that serve underprivileged children mostly in the greater Chicago area. And what we're attempting to do is not only make that a financial impact, but also to engage our audience to become more involved in helping these organizations, so it's not just giving them money but giving some of their time and business expertise."

Invest For Kids plans to launch a charitable advisory group in the near future. "We're going to basically appeal to people in the audience to get more involved in these organizations," said Levin. "Not give them more money -- they've already given money to come to the conference -- but to potentially serve as a consultant, a board member, an advisor and trying to kind of match people's interest with the needs of these organizations."

Where to Sign Up

Invest For Kids will take place on November 7 at the Harris Theater in downtown Chicago. Investment professionals who are interested in attending can register here.

To learn more about the organization, visit the official Invest For Kids website at investforkidschicago.org.

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