Rattner Leaving Quadrangle For the Auto Industry Bailout Advisor Post Under Obama
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Steve Rattner, the political and corporate financier and the founder of media PE and hedge fund Quadrangle Group, is officially leaving the firm to join the Treasury Department as a lead adviser on the auto industry bailout. This is not quiet the car czar position as some had hoped for before, and Rattner's name for it has come up before as well. In his new role, Rattner will advise Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, on reorg efforts by GM and Chrysler, two carmakers that are receiving federal bailout money, reports NYT. Rattner was a financial reporter for NYT, and later became a media and telecom dealmaker for the likes of Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, before starting his own firm. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has hired Quadrangle to manage his assets via a blind trust, and continues so even as Rattner leaves.
Rattner has been politically active for a long time, as longtime Democratic contributor, and backer of Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Some even speculated that he sought the Treasury secretary post in a Clinton administration, but of course that never came to be.
Qudrangle closed its media hedge fund in November last year after a strong of losses, but has been actively trying in the media PE sector, owning stakes in the loss making Alpha Media Group (parent of Maxim and Blender) and MGM. In 2007, Quadrangle brought on former Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) COO Dan Rosensweig to start its Silicon Valley office, but nothing has come out of it yet, as credit crisis and the resulting dearth of PE deals continue.
By Rafat Ali