Wall Street financier Steve Rattner is close to making a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his role in a “pay to play” investigation related to New York’s state pension fund. Rattner, a big Democratic donor who handled the restructuring of the auto industry for the Obama administration, has been battling for more than a year the probe of state officials trading access to the $125 billion fund in exchange for political favors and kickbacks. In the SEC deal, Rattner would cough up about $6 million and be banned from the securities industry for two years. The ban would be a big blow to Rattner, who rose to second in command at Lazard Freres & Co. before leaving to found his own private equity firm, the one that was eventually caught up in the investigation. SEC commissioners will vote on the deal Thursday.
Read it at The Wall Street Journal
