shery: ed hammond joining us from sun valley.ing up next, markets are recalibrating their bets on pharmacy benefit managers. after the white house abandoned the push to end rebates. another group could find itself under scrutiny. we will explain. this is bloomberg. ♪ amber: this is bloomberg markets. shery: shares of cbs and unitedhealth rallying today after the white house announced it was pulling the plug on a plan to end rebates paid to pharmacy benefit managers. the reversal could increase scrutiny of drugmakers. here with more on the story is the bloomberg health policy and bloomberg reporter, and at a. this is headed toward the presidential election. what happened? >> the plan that the administration wanted to put forward, which would have gotten rid of the pharmacy benefit manager rebates, also would have increased premiums for many embedded -- for many medicare beneficiaries across the board. it would have maybe saved some money out of pocket for some of the seniors, but not nearly as many as premiums would have gone out

let's bring in bloomberg news reporter ed hammond. e been anticipating this through the doj. does it mean the companies can go ahead? ed: pretty much. that was the -- this was the final big hurdle. based on space they need to be in front of, but this is the one people were looking for. this is what the risk odds were focused on. i think it is a big day. it is a momentous occasion for these companies and this has been five years. this was a deal that was blocked in his previous iteration. they brought it back. both companies have done a lot of work in terms of being in front of the ftc or the sec and now in front of the doj to get this done. guy: they are doing this for competitive reasons, to consolidate. how does this change the competitive landscape in the united states? ed: they are doing it has much to consolidate as to survive. their argument was that if they did not they would both become obsolete. they needed to merge. just looking through what has just come out is this commitment to build out the five g network. they are also r

ed hammond is standing by right now. i am here with the ceo.onference.resting i want to get into what is going on in the lodge. let's talk about 401(k)s. talk to us why -- about why it is so important. joey: 38 million americans don't have retirement accounts. for are not remotely ready retirement. incredible tax incentive for the government. that means you can put money into an earned today account and it can compound, tax-free for a very long time. the value of that is tremendous to an employee. they are allowing a lot more people to participate in the economy. we were not taking advantage of it enough. we would match 100% of what .mployees contribute that helps people put a lot of money away for retirement. earners in thest company were maxing out what they could put into a 401(k). this helps bridge the income inequality gap by not just moving money to these people but also helping them participate in markets where value creation has occurred and where a lot of that value creation has not gone to his lower earners and companies. they don't p

i think it's going to be great for each of the states. >> that was ed hammond.e was formerly a yahoo! board member. i will start with you. let's talk about this dish question. how can dish be a viable competitor when there are going to be so much smaller -- they are going to be somewhat smaller. >> this really sets up dish to be a disruptive player in the wireless industry. it will take time. not only is dish paying $5 billion, this is three p pay -- three prepaid brands. not executing on what they said they would do. they've got some specific targets that they said they would hit that includes covering 20% of the u.s. population of their service by 2022 and 70% of the population with the new 5g network by 2023. these are serious undertakings they have agreed to. >> ceo john leger tweeted, we can't wait to get to work -- is it really all that of -- all that positive for the consumer for 5g? >> i think it is definitely positive for the consumer. a lot of the concerns about competition are really misplaced. having three strong players will make it much more of a c

ed hammond is on the ground with a guest with minting positions in everything from tencent to amazon.ank you so much. anderson,d by james head of global equities at baillie gifford. you have the honor of being our first guest at this year sun valley conference. we have seen the suvs arriving, the vests. what are people talking about in some ways i find it difficult to apply a narrative. so many different conversations. for each of us, we are inspired by our particular interests. as you would expect, several comments on politics and even including britain, and about the ramifications for us. ed: obviously, everyone is looking at this through their own lens. last time we talked, talking about the debate between growth and value investors. you are big growth investors. why does belly get so much credit, seems to absorb so much of the attention, people are said to be prophetic, whereas growth, it is seen more as a moonshot. why is that? wees: that is right and don't have the answers to this and so many topics. you capture it well. isehow, valley investment seen as more serious and has an

ed hammond, wonderful reporting. broadcom had been higher all session as well, about two percent.me for your latest bloomberg business flash. gilead sciences is boosting its galapagos, paying $5.1 billion to increase research into inflammatory diseases. it raises its stake in galapagos to 22%. gilead has been hurt by incoming competition. in oil transaction is valued at $3.2 billion representing 18% premium. that is your latest bloomberg business flash. a quick check of u.s. markets -- they were fractionally lower do now unchanged on the dow and the s&p which is at 3013. this is bloomberg. ♪ 3 vonnie: live from new york, this is bloomberg markets. let's check in on first word news. >> in new york, lawyers for accused sexual trafficker jeffrey epstein are arguing today that he should be released on bail. prosecutors say the financier is worth half $1 billion and is a danger to flee. they say several more women have contacted them in recent days to say he abused them when they were underage. the hurricane that hit louisiana has now been downgraded to a tropical depression. it's expe

our own ed hammond saying there was something wrong with the due diligence.com took down the price. symantec said no and both parties walked away. it is up 1.4%. symantec down 13%, even though it had been down 1.2%. gilead up 2.3%. citigroup has been waxing and waning all day. broad satisfaction with its results. we will see later in the week what the other big banks report. that is a look at global markets right now. now moving to south africa. more trouble for the indebted power activity. and the price is spilling over to south africa's investment corporation, which manages retirement funds for more than one million government workers. $150 billion in pic. joining us is elian investment management cio. thank you for joining. how much worst is a get with escom? >> this is probably the worst it can get. the government has indicated clearly that they will try to rescue escom. the first thing they are distribution, -- generation, and transmission. it is clearly the case indicated in parliament by the prime minister. there is a plan. the news is still bad in ter