The Private Equity Problem

With private equity dry powder booming and billionaires being minted across the industry: Did the biggest banks miss out? Henry Cornell, once a vice chairman at Goldman's merchant banking division who now runs his own firm, joins us for BTV as part of a week long series on the future of banking to discuss whether the big banks can get back into the swing if the rewrite in the Volcker Rule allows for it. There's a spotty history of the biggest banks in buyout funds, but Goldman is now merging all of its units dedicated to private capital at a time when the industry is raising records. That would make them something along the size of KKR, which in turn, is doing more capital markets activity that competes with Goldman. Are the banks and PE firms getting in each other's way?

Banks are expanding in other ways. Morgan Stanley's purchase of Solium and Goldman's acquisition of United Capital are their biggest deals since 2008. Why exactly are banks doubling down on wealth management? The margins can partially tell you why. And leading into bank earnings, Morgan Stanley has the most bullish sentiment among Wall Street analysts of the major U.S. banks. With that said: Some ultra-wealthy people are starting to get conservative, putting more money in cash, and planning for their retirement as they expect to live beyond 100 years old. UBS's Jason Chandler, who was recently named to oversee the bank's business in the Americas, said he believes the business can't be "Amazon-ed or Uber-ed."

Speaking of technology: Most of our guests said the banks investing most heavily will be the winners. Eli Salzmann of Neuberger Berman said it's one of the top themes underpinning his approach to investing in financials. The ones that are most able to adapt to the future -- JPM, BofA, Citi are just three that he named -- may survive, but most others will struggle. Apple is the biggest technology giant that will change banking as we know it today, said Alyson Clarke, who works on digital efforts for finance firms at Forrester.

And speaking of deals, here's a feature by Bloomberg's Michelle Davis on how the banks have been able to expand under the Trump administration. "One more big one before I'm done," Jamie Dimon told an audience in a conference in New York recently. Regulators may not stand in his way. She explains her story here for BTV.

Billionaires, Non-Billionaires & Money Makers

Billionaires are coalescing at Sun Valley -- the conference hosted by Allen & Co., an underwriter this year for Pinterest, Uber and others, as well as a pioneer in the direct listing model. They were on Slack and Spotify. (More in IPOs: Bank of America seeks to steal the IPO crown.) Elsewhere in Sun Valley: Tesla's top outside investor speaks to Bloomberg's Ed Hammond. He kindly asks Elon Musk to cool it with the over-the-top tweets.

Billionaire Ken Griffin has had a lot going on this year. As hedge funds had their best first half in a decade, Griffin's major funds at Citadel took the crown and Och-Ziff was not far behind. (By the way, Och-Ziff is finally allowed to raise money again after being handcuffed by the U.S. from doing so during a probe into a bribery scandal.) Here's the take for BTV, and here's the run down from our investing team on the winners and losers.

Here's one for the "non-billionaire" category -- Our colleagues try to find out: How did Jeffrey Epstein make his money? No one seems to know. This is the scoop via Bloomberg's Tom Metcalf and the take for Bloomberg TV by me, Alix Steel and Lisa Abramowicz. Epstein -- by the way -- was a client of Deutsche Bank until the private bank dropped him as a client earlier this year, Metcalf reports. And don't miss this piece on the mystery of Epstein's private island.

More big things from this week:

• Bloomberg's Hannah Levitt breaks that Cathy Bessant -- one of the most powerful women in finance -- is on the shortlist for Wells Fargo's CEO search after more than 100 days of limbo.
• Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, JPMorgan: There's a frenetic shuffle for jobs on Wall Street.
• Swiss asset manager GAM -- with Soros and Gabelli as major backers -- finally gets a lift after a scandal last year. Merger talks may ensue.
• Perella Weinberg is spinning out funds that manage more than $2 billion. The firm has been restructuring, filed confidentially for an IPO, and some money managers have already transitioned to firms including Jefferies, our sources have said.
• Boutique banks are merging more and more. Here's why.
• The Volcker Rule revamp is expected by the fourth quarter of this year (for BTV).
• The biggest IPO of the year is hitting a snag. Here's our talk on BTV about AB InBev's mega deal in Hong Kong as bankers rush through the weekend to find a way to get it through.

Hoping you have a great weekend ahead. I will be on a boat.

Sonali