Trott Once Goldman Buffett-Whisperer Adds Kochs to Wealthy Ties

Carol Bernick, executive chairman of Alberto-Culver Co., was facing the decision of a lifetime. She was going to sell the Melrose Park, Illinois–based shampoo maker her father had started in 1955 or she was going to plunge into foreign markets -- Japan and Brazil -- to keep up with competitors. To help make her choice, she called just one banker: Byron Trott, chief executive officer and chairman of BDT Capital Partners LLC in Chicago, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its September issue.

Bernick, 62, says she considered Trott a partner in preserving her family’s wealth; she’d worked with him for two-and-a-half decades as he advanced at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.