CABINET/SEC/TRUMP PEOPLE/JAY CLAYTON: “After spending years cultivating an elite roster of Wall Street and corporate clients, Jay Clayton will now be responsible for policing some of those same types of companies.
Mr. Clayton, a longtime partner at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell who is President Trump’s pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, has represented big banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays as well as prominent hedge funds and corporate executives, according to a financial disclosure form made public on Wednesday [3-8-17] by the Office of Government Ethics…
Mr. Clayton, who says he will recuse himself from certain cases involving former clients, has also personally invested in a number of hedge funds and private equity firms through special Sullivan & Cromwell investment vehicles, according to the filing. He earned $7.6 million from Sullivan & Cromwell over the past year or so and has investments in portfolios managed by Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, J.C. Flowers and Perry Partners. His wife, Gretchen, who works at Goldman Sachs, has a number of investments in Goldman-managed funds as well as a small amount, described in his filing as being less than $1,001, with a retirement account once managed by Omega Advisors, a hedge fund now fighting S.E.C. charges.
Mr. Clayton’s disclosures offer a rare glimpse into his client list and family wealth — a sum of at least $50 million, his filing shows — and may reinforce a view among consumer groups and Democratic lawmakers that he could have conflicting interests as a Wall Street regulator. Although he is expected to broadly support the agency’s enforcement efforts, he has made statements suggesting that he will probably move to ease at least some of the Obama-era regulations weighing on Wall Street clients.”
-Ben Protess and Mathew Goldstein, “Trump’s S.E.C. Nominee Disclosure Offers Rare Glimpse of Clients and Conflicts,” The New York Times online, March 8, 2017