We’ve reached the precipice of the July Fourth holiday-turned-week, which has many of Wall Street’s top bankers ducking out a bit early for a round at Maidstone and a little lawn tennis—all in the spirit of deals, of course. (Will they ever let Bob Kraft in, one wonders…) Anyway, Dry Powder will also go into recess next week along with my Wall Street brethren. In the meantime, I wanted to catch up on a number of brewing topics with my partner, Jon Kelly, Puck’s co-founder and editor-in-chief. Herewith, we dive into some speculative Hollywood deal flow, a little Goldman Sachs personnel excitement, and what the money crowd wants (and expects) from this election.

Zazonomics

Jon Kelly: Bill, you’ve predicted that Apollo and Sony will reemerge to attempt to acquire Paramount Global from Shari Redstone. Obviously, there are going to be economic challenges (Shari wants a larger premium for her control) and regulatory issues (Sony and Apollo need to figure out how to manage foreign ownership of CBS). I know these guys at Apollo are structure geniuses, but what do you think about the idea of RedBird trying to buy CBS and having Jeff Shell or Jeff Zucker operate it? I assumed this was a perk of the old David Ellison deal, and it might remove a real deal blocker?