By Ryan Tracy, Andrew Ackerman and Nick Timiraos
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's aides are moving to fill
in some important remaining blanks in his financial and economic
lineups, eyeing a crisis-era Treasury Department official to become
a top banking regulator, and a banker-turned-lawmaker for the No. 2
job at the Treasury.
David Nason, a Treasury official under President George W. Bush
who now leads GE Energy Financial Services, has emerged as the
front-runner for the top bank oversight job at the Federal Reserve,
according to people familiar with the matter.
Meanwhile Rep. French Hill, a Republican congressman from
Arkansas who once ran a small bank in his home state, is under
consideration for Deputy Treasury Secretary, people familiar with
the matter said. He would serve under Steven Mnuchin, whose
nomination as secretary awaits a Senate confirmation vote.
And Gary Cohn, director of Mr. Trump's White House National
Economic Council, is said to be close to naming three top
staffers.
None of those appointments has been officially announced, and
the Trump team could end up choosing different candidates, these
people said. Representatives of the Trump Administration didn't
respond to requests for comment. Mr. Nason didn't respond to
requests for comment. Mr. Hill's spokesman had no comment.
Reuters earlier reported that Mr. Nason is the leading candidate
for the Fed job.
All told, the crop of potential appointees points to a
reemergence of several officials from the second term of the George
W. Bush administration.
Chief among those is Mr. Nason, who if appointed Fed vice chair
for supervision would take on perhaps the most powerful financial
regulatory job in the country, with oversight over most of the
nation's largest banks and insurance companies. Mr. Trump's team
has considered other candidates for that post, including consultant
Paul Atkins, who was once a Securities and Exchange Commission
member; former BB&T Corp. CEO John Allison; Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. Vice Chairman Thomas Hoenig; and Mr. Hill. But
people familiar with the matter now say Mr. Nason appears to be
leading the pack.
Early in his career, Mr. Nason worked on corporate transactions
as a lawyer at Covington & Burling LLP. At General Electric Co.
since 2010, he was chief regulatory officer of GE Capital Corp.
when it was designated a "systemically important financial
institution" in July 2013 and began to be subject to oversight by
the Fed. Several months later he moved to lead GE Capital's energy
unit, where he has put together deals to finance power plants,
sometimes joining with Wall Street investment banks he could end up
regulating. GE Capital convinced U.S. officials last year to let it
shed the "SIFI" tag -- and the Fed supervision that came with it --
after shrinking significantly.
In between those private sector posts, Mr. Nason worked at the
Securities and Exchange Commission as a staffer to Mr. Atkins. It
is not clear whether he shares Mr. Atkins' critical view of
postcrisis financial regulations, because he hasn't spoken much
publicly about financial regulatory policy. Mr. Atkins has run the
financial regulation unit for Mr. Trump's transition team, and has
played an influential role in helping choose the nominations.
Mr. Nason moved from the SEC to the Treasury, where he rose to
his most notable job as assistant secretary for financial markets
during the financial crisis. He worked for Secretary Henry Paulson
setting up a bank bailout program and an emergency rescue for the
money-market fund industry. Those emergency actions prompted a
strong political backlash, including from many Republicans now in
Congress. But in a 2008 Washington Post article, Mr. Nason was
quoted as saying the government's actions were a pragmatic
necessity to prevent a collapse of the financial system.
Mr. Hill, who previously served in the Treasury under President
George H.W. Bush, is a second-term House lawmaker whose district
includes Little Rock, Ark.
Before his political career, Mr. Hill was a community banker. He
was chairman and CEO of Delta Trust & Bank, which he and other
investors bought in 1999 and grew from $61 million in assets to
more than $430 million before selling the firm in 2014 to Simmons
First National Corp. for $66 million, according to the Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette.
In the House, Mr. Hill has been critical of postcrisis
regulation, sponsoring legislation aimed at rolling back portions
of a new rule that critics say has crimped the market for
commercial mortgage-backed securities.
Another candidate for a top Treasury slot -- the undersecretary
for domestic finance -- is Jim Donovan, a senior Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. private banker, The Wall Street Journal has previously
reported.
Mr. Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president, also appears to be
rounding out his staff at the White House.
Shahira Knight, an executive at Fidelity Investments, is
expected to be appointed to a position on the National Economic
Council where she will work on tax policy, according to people
familiar with the matter. Other members of that team are likely to
include Jeremy Katz, a former executive at Chicago-based Grosvenor
Capital Management who worked in the younger Mr. Bush's National
Economic Council, and Jeffrey Stoltzfoos, who works with Mr. Nason
at GE Energy Financial Services and served in Mr. Paulson's
Treasury Department, these people said.
Meantime, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday
that Republican J. Christopher Giancarlo had been named acting
chair, succeeding Obama appointee Timothy Massad, who stepped down
as chairman Friday. Mr. Giancarlo is seen as the most likely
candidate to be nominated as chairman of the swaps regulator.
Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com, Andrew Ackerman at
andrew.ackerman@wsj.com and Nick Timiraos at
nick.timiraos@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2017 18:33 ET (23:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024