2 Former Treasury Chiefs Add Clout to Hedge Funds

October 21, 2006

Two former U.S. Treasury secretaries -- John W. Snow and Lawrence H. Summers -- have accepted positions with two of the nation's largest hedge funds at a time when federal officials are growing increasingly concerned about the impact of the private investment pools on U.S. financial markets.

Snow, 67, who resigned in May after three years with the Bush administration, will become chairman of Cerberus Capital Management LP, a $16.5 billion fund that contributes heavily to the Republican Party and counts former vice president Dan Quayle among its chief officers.

Summers, 51, who led the Treasury Department during the final years of the Clinton administration and until recently was president of Harvard University, will join D.E. Shaw & Co. as a part-time managing director. D.E. Shaw, a major Democratic Party contributor, manages $25 billion in assets and ranked as the nation's fourth-largest hedge fund in a recent survey by Absolute Return, a monthly magazine for the hedge-fund industry.

With the announcements Thursday, Snow and Summers join a long line of "highly ranked Treasury officials who have found gainful employment on Wall Street," said Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001539.html