Despite hard times, or maybe because of hard times, Fortress Investment Group has just awarded $300 million in shares to retain one of its traders.

Short-term results “can and will be lumpy,” Fortress Investment Group CEO Wesley Edens told investors after the firm announced first-quarter results earlier this year. When does “lumpy” become something more serious?

Its $6 billion buyout may have collapsed, but business life goes on — quite aggressively — for Penn National Gaming.

Erin Callan doesn’t look like a master of the universe in her crocheted dresses and bright-red leather jackets.

Among the muckety-mucks gathered for the media summit in Sun Valley this week are Daniel Och, a partner in the soon-to-go-public Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, and Dirk Ziff, an investor in the company.

Och established the hedge fund and private equity company 14 years ago, with funds from the Ziff family. Och-Ziff filed notice with the SEC earlier this month of its intention to raise $2 billion through an IPO.

Och and Ziff are hardly the only money men at the conference. Other attendees include Richard Perry of hedge-fund firm Perry Capital and Wesley Edens of Fortress Investment Group.