Steven Rattner

Steven Lawrence Rattner is a former investment banker who worked for two decades at Lehman Brothers, Lazard Freres, and Morgan Stanley. He was the Treasury Department’s point man on the bailout of the auto industry by the Obama administration.

Rattner is also chairman of Willett Advisors LLC, the investment arm for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $25 billion in assets.

In 2010, Rattner reached a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission in which he was banned from the securities industry for two years and required to pay $6.2 million for his involvement in a pension fund kickback scheme between his company, the Quadrangle Group, and New York State’s $125 billion public pension fund. "Rattner delivered special favors and conducted sham transactions that corrupted the retirement fund’s investment process," David Rosenfeld, the associate director of the SEC’s regional office in New York, said at the time of the settlement.

Ties to Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt"
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem."

Rattner is listed as a member of the Campaign to Fix the Debt's steering committee. He is on the board of the New America Foundation, the Pete Peterson-funded parent organization of Fix the Debt and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). Rattner is also chairman of Willett Advisors LLC, the investment arm for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $25 billion in assets.

This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy's investigation of Pete Peterson's Campaign to "Fix the Debt." Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.

Background
According to his Quadrangle Group biography as of 2009, Rattner was "a Managing Principal of Quadrangle Group LLC focused on the firm’s $2.9 billion media and communications private equity business. Prior to the formation of Quadrangle Group in 2000, Mr. Rattner was Deputy Chairman and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Lazard Freres & Co. LLC. Mr. Rattner founded Lazard's Media and Communications Group and has been involved in many of the largest and most important transactions in these industries. Mr. Rattner, who joined Lazard in 1989 as a General Partner, was previously a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where he also founded the Communications Group. Mr. Rattner is active in many philanthropic organizations. He is Chairman of the Educational Broadcasting Corporation (Channels 13 and 21, New York’s public television stations), Chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee and a Fellow of Brown University, and a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brookings Institution. In addition, he writes regularly for a variety of publications on economic and public policy matters. Mr. Rattner holds a B.A. with honors in economics from Brown University and was awarded the Harvey Baker Fellowship."

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 1986, he married Patricia Maureen White.


 * Member, Bilderberg
 * Director, New America Foundation
 * Director, IAC/InterActiveCorp
 * Director, Partnership for New York City
 * Former Chair, Channel 13 (New York's public television station - after Henry Kravis stepped down)

Featured SourceWatch Articles on Fix the Debt

 * Fix the Debt Portal Page
 * Fix the Debt's Leadership
 * Fix the Debt's Partner Groups
 * Fix the Debt's State Chapters
 * Fix the Debt's Lobbyists
 * Fix the Debt's Parent Group
 * Fix the Debt's Corporations
 * Pete Peterson
 * Peter G. Peterson Foundation
 * America Speaks
 * Simpson-Bowles Commission
 * Erskine Bowles
 * Alan Simpson
 * Social Security
 * Medicare
 * Medicaid

External Resources

 * Steven Rattner Website