The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President to nominate investment fund manager for Fed post
Ex-Treasury official would become central bank’s regulatory chief.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump made the first move this week to put his stamp on the Federal Reserve, announcing he intended to nominate investment fund manager Randal Quarles to a key post overseeing the central bank’s regulatory efforts, the White House said.
The nomination, if confirmed by the Senate, would fill one of three vacancies on the Fed’s seven-member board of governors with a veteran of Washington and Wall Street who is expected to be friendlier toward the banking industry than recent Democratic appointees.
Quarles could become a crucial
ally for the Trump administration and congressional Republicans as they seek to roll back some of the stricter fifinancial regulations enacted after the 2008 fifinancial crisis.
Quarles’ nomination has been rumored for weeks. He is a founder and managing director of the Cynosure Group, a private investment firm in Salt Lake City. Before that, he was a partner at the Carlyle Group, a high-profile private equity firm.
Aformer Treasury official during the George W. Bush administration, he has publicly opposed mostly liberal calls to break up the biggest banks and has supported Republican efforts to have the Fed adopt a rules-based approach to monetary policy to make interest rate moves more predictable.
But Quarles’ biggest effect probably would be on financial regulation.
In addition to being nominated to a board seat, he is being tapped to be the Fed’s vice chair for supervision. The position was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul to oversee the Fed’s expanded role in regulating and supervising the nation’s largest bank holding companies.
President Barack Obama never nominated anyone to fill the position. Former Fed board member Daniel Tarullo, who stepped down in April, had taken on much of the job’s responsibilities.
Although major regulatory decisions must be approved by a majority of the board of governors, the vice chair for supervision is charged with developing policy recommendations and would have amajor role in overseeing banks and other financial firms under the Fed’s authority.
Quarles’ biography said he “spent many years working as a partner at the Wall Street law fifirm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was the co-head of the firm’s Financial Institutions Group and advised on transactions that included a number of the largest financial sector mergers ever completed.”
Quarles also has extensive experience in Washington. He served as Treasury’s undersecretary for domestic fifinance, as well as assistant secretary for international a ffair sand the U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund.
In addition to being nominated to a board seat, (Quarles) is being tapped tobe the Fed’s vice chair for supervision.