Former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin is President-elect Donald Trump's likely choice for secretary of the treasury, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Mnuchin began his career at Goldman Sachs, then started a hedge fund before moving to invest in the movie business. The Wall Street insider has never held a government position.
Mr. Mnuchin, 53, was the national finance chairman for Mr. Trump's campaign. He began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner, before creating his own hedge fund, moving to the West Coast and entering the first rank of movie financiers by bankrolling hits like the "X-Men" franchise and "Avatar."
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After leaving Goldman in 2002, he founded Dune Capital Management, a hedge fund named after the dunes near his beach house in the Hamptons.
He also started investing in the movie business and bought a house in Bel-Air. He is engaged to the actress Louise Linton, who would be his third wife. He told The Times in May that he has focused in recent years on the "West Coast economy," although he added that he was not turning his back on Wall Street.
Mnuchin then moved to OneWest Bank, which battled claims of improper foreclosures during his tenure.
Mr. Mnuchin was part of a group that bought the failed California mortgage lender IndyMac from the government in 2009. He became chairman of the company, renamed OneWest, which was ultimately sold to CIT, the nation’s largest small-business lender, in 2015 for more than twice the price the group had paid.
During his tenure, OneWest faced allegations that it had foreclosed improperly on some borrowers. Fair-housing groups also filed a complaint with the federal government, alleging that OneWest was not meeting its legal obligation to make loans in minority neighborhoods.
Mnuchin has been a Trump supporter since the early stages of his presidential campaign. He even attended a victory party for Trump after he won New York's Republican presidential primary.
But Mr. Mnuchin has said that he agrees with Mr. Trump’s priorities, and he was an early supporter of a candidate who clearly prizes loyalty.
When Mr. Trump won New York’s Republican presidential primary in April, Mr. Mnuchin attended the victory party. The next day, he accepted Mr. Trump’s invitation to become the campaign’s national finance director.
Mnuchin and Trump have known each other for a long time.