America's richest banker quadrupled his firm's assets last year by making a massive bet that inflation would spike

• Andy Beal is America's wealthiest banker, with a net worth of $10.3 billion.
• His firm's assets shot up from $7.5 billion to $32.6 billion after making a big get on inflation, MarketWatch reported. 
• Beal didn't follow the pack of other regional lenders desperately looking to generate yield. 

While many of America's regional banks were making risky investments to generate yield during a prolonged period of low interest rates, Andy Beal, the founder and chairman of Beal Bank, was on the sidelines waiting to capitalize on a trade that would ultimately quadruple his firm's assets in a year.