Treasury May Bring the Ultimate Insider on Board

Two candidates for top jobs at the Treasury have withdrawn their names from consideration. Treasury may replace one of the candidates with the ultimate insider.

WSJ is reporting that "Treasury has identified and is vetting other people for top slots, including H. Rodgin Cohen, chairman of top law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and an adviser to virtually every firm on Wall Street, for the deputy secretary position, two people familiar with the matter said."

Sullivan & Cromwell has been top outside counsel to Goldman Sachs for decades ,and Cohen is as wired in as wired in gets.

NYT wrote on October 7, 2008

For Mr. Cohen, virtually every day in September was a workday, including the weekends. Long regarded as one of the top counselors to major financial firms, Mr. Cohen has, in the past 30 days alone, advised Fannie Mae; A.I.G.; Lehman
Brothers; and JPMorgan Chase & Company in its government-brokered purchase of Washington Mutual.

WSJ in October 9, 2008 wrote:

With virtually all of Wall Street as his client, [Cohen] has solidified his role as one of the most influential private-sector players in the financial crisis. Over the past five weeks alone, Mr. Cohen and his team have advised Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Wachovia, Barclays PLC, American International Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in a blitz of mergers, rescues and cash infusions

According to his Sullivan & Cromwell bio:

In the acquisitions area, Mr. Cohen has been engaged in most of the major bank acquisitions in the United States, including Wells Fargo-Wachovia, PNC-National City, Toronto Dominion-Commerce, Bank of New York-Mellon Financial, Regions-AmSouth, Wachovia-Golden West, Wachovia-SouthTrust, Chase-Bank One, First Union-Wachovia, U.S. Bancorp-Firstar, Wells Fargo-Norwest, Wells Fargo-First Interstate, Chemical-Chase, First Union-First Fidelity, Key-Society, NationsBank-C&S, and Bank of New York-Irving, as well as numerous other acquisitions. In cross-border and non-U.S. transactions, he was engaged in Banco Santander-Sovereign, Mitsubishi UFG-Morgan Stanley, Barclays-Lehman, Mitsubishi UFG-UnionBanCal, Standard Chartered-American Express Bank, Goldman Sachs-Sumitomo, Allianz-Dresdner, UBS-PaineWebber, Credit Suisse-DLJ, Société Générale-Paribas, Dexia-FSA, Mitsubishi-Bank of Tokyo, Credit Suisse-First Boston, Royal Bank of Canada-Bank of Montreal, and acquisitions or divestitures by Barclays Bank, National Westminster, Midland Bank, Lloyds Bank, Bank of Ireland and Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino. He has also worked on a number of major cross-industry and private equity acquisitions, including JPMorgan Chase-Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch-BlackRock, J.C. Flowers-Sallie Mae, Mellon-Dreyfus and NationsBank-Montgomery, as well as acquisitions in the insurance industry, including Anthem-WellPoint and Manulife-Hancock...

He has also participated in the resolution of most major bank failures, including Washington Mutual, Continental, First City, Southeast, Franklin National and Bank of New England and, at the recommendation of the Federal Reserve, the Ohio thrift crisis.

During the past several years, Mr. Cohen has devoted substantial time to regulatory, law enforcement and internal investigations of financial institutions. Publicly disclosed matters involve ABN AMRO, Bank of Montreal, Banco Popular, Bank of New York, Fifth Third, First Horizon, IDB, KeyCorp, Mellon, Mitsubishi UFG, Royal Bank of Canada, Standard Chartered, Sun Trust, Wachovia and Wells Fargo.

Obviously, Cohen must believe spending a bit of time on the inside (On what, a $250k salary?) must be extremely valuable, to leave the kinds of gigs he has been involved in.