Former Obama Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will join Centerview Partners. In his senior counselor role Emanuel will establish a Chicago office for Centerview. Crain's Chicago Business reported:
The long-time Democrat decided not to seek a third mayoral term last year, after several decades in the political sphere, including as a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, a three-term U.S. House representative from Illinois and chief of staff to President Barack Obama. After he left the Clinton White House, Emanuel was a Chicago-based investment banker with Wasserstein Perella for two years through 2000.Emanuel will work alongside former Treasury Chief Robert Rubin, also a Senior Counselor for Centerview Partners. Rubin joined the firm in 2010.
Rubin and his successor, Lawrence Summers, pushed for several policies that benefited Wall Street. The most significant were thwarting an attempt to regulate financial derivatives and repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking.Emanuel made $18 million in two and a half years working for Wasserstein Perella. Politico noted:
Emanuel turned big Democratic donors and others he’d met during his White House years into clients for Wasserstein Perella, a firm that was led by Bruce Wasserstein, a hefty financial supporter of Clinton.One of Centerview's co-founders, Robert Pruzan, worked at Wasserstein Perella. Pruzan and Blair Effron founded Centerview in 2006.
Emanuel's mentor Bruce Wasserstein died in 2010. Vanity Fair reported:
This is the same Bruce Wasserstein who deprived the state and city of New York of some $75 million in capital-gains taxes (12 percent of his capital gain of around $625 million) when he claimed to have moved his residence to London in 2001, after he had sold Wasserstein Perella to Dresdner Bank.Rahm will be reunited with Rubin, the man who helped break the world. It sounds like the premise for a horror movie.
Emanuel is a brawler. He’s legendarily tough and effective and ruthless. He's the type of guy who makes enemies, then makes lists of his enemies, then makes lists of his enemies’ friends, then makes lists of how they’ll pay.Jerk Rahm joins the man who ramped up risk to benefit the greed and leverage boys. Apparently $18 million isn't nearly enough for retired politicians and their financial backers. Emanuel has more brawling to do.
Emanuel picked up a knife and called out the names of different politicians who had “f–––ed us.” After each name, Emanuel would cry out, “Dead man!”—and stab the knife into the table.
Update 10-22-19: Bloomberg reported a Centerview staffer worked with a peer at Moelis to sell insider information and the pair received over $1 million for their dastardly deeds.
