Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - September 18th, 2026

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This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead, with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio.

Carol Massar (0:32)

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend Podcast. Our backdrop this week, it was a beach on the West Coast.

Over the next 60 minutes, we've got highlights from the annual Future Proof Festival in Huntington Beach, California. It's a gathering of the wealth management ecosystem, including over 150 C-suite executives, 3,000 financial analysts, wealth management execs, and limited partners, more than 5,000 attendees in all, representing an anticipated $20 trillion in assets under management. It's kind of like, Tim, a who's who of the financial world.

Tim Stenovec (1:07)

This year does, though, mark the fifth year of the event, condensing industry insights, networking, and technology trends into four outdoor days. All of this happening against the backdrop of an industry-wide push to adopt AI, a high stakes Fed meeting, ongoing global conflict, and a volatile macroeconomic climate.

Carol Massar (1:25)

Yeah, safe to say there was a lot to talk about. Well, this hour, we'll include our conversations from Future Proof with Rick Pitcairn, Chairman and Chief Global Strategist at the more than 100-year-old family office that bears his family name. We talked about the drama when it comes to family money.

Tim Stenovec (1:40)

We're also joined by Joe Magazine, partner at Fortuna Investments. He talks about why he thinks Miami can become the new Wall Street South.

Carol Massar (1:49)

First up, we start with the event itself. And the themes Future Proof was focusing on this year, Matt Middleton is the creator and CEO.

Matt Middleton (1:57)

It's remarkable to see in five years what the community has kind of done. I always laugh and say, yeah, you have this great idea, but ideas are just an idea. And when you think about this business, more broadly, we are a full mile long, and it feels like every single asset manager is building here.

Tim Stenovec (2:14)

So I want to talk to the economics of the event, but I think what's equally interesting to me is the economic impact of this event. And I'm wondering if you've quantified this at all, because 16 hotels, people flying in from all over the country for this, I go to buy a coffee in the morning, they know I'm with the festival, everybody here is wearing a badge, they're spending money at night. What is the economic impact?

Matt Middleton (2:35)

Oh, it's tens of millions of dollars now. We usually come in October, we'll have the debrief with the city, but last year it eclipsed $20 million, and I think it's going to be way more than that this year, just in the grand size of it.

It's funny when you go, because I'm here early, right, it's building, and you hear from all of the staff at the hotels, and they're like, it's like they look at it as like their week, it's almost like the holiday weekends, right? And so it represents, you know, obviously the financial impact, but more importantly, the quality of people that show up here. And I think they always embrace it and love it at the same.

Carol Massar (3:08)

I have to say everybody in the hotel is incredible.

Tim Stenovec (3:10)

The thing that is noticeable, I think, to some people who come here in the summer just for vacation, is now that schools back in session around the country, it's a pretty typically dead time of year for this area. I mean, even on the beach, not many people out there right now because everybody is here, but you come here in the middle of summer, everything is packed.

Matt Middleton (3:31)

Well, I mean, also think about it. This is Huntington Beach, right?

Tim Stenovec (3:33)

This is in LA, right?

Matt Middleton (3:34)

So the fact that we have 5,700 people here from the financial professional industry is remarkable. And then, yeah, people walk by, they're doing their walks on the weekend, and they're like, is this part of the FIFA programming? Because the infrastructure is massive, right? They're so used to these, like, what is this activation? I'm like, oh, it's the wealth managing industry. They're like, what?

Carol Massar (3:54)

It doesn't look like that at all. And I mean, you guys have expanded onto the beach big time this year. Matt, part of, I think, we've had a conversation in the past that part of it, though, is you maybe don't want it to get too large. Is that still the case?