Meanwhile, Geithner is rumored to be heading to Government Sachs in November...
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) may hire Richard “Jake” Siewert Jr., a former counselor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, to manage the bank’s communications department, according to three people familiar with the situation.
Siewert, who turns 48 today, is in talks about a role similar to the one held by Lucas van Praag, 62, who has worked at Goldman Sachs for 12 years, said the people, who asked for anonymity because the talks aren’t public and an agreement hasn’t been reached.
Hiring Siewert may help bolster Goldman Sachs’s links with the Democratic Party in the U.S., which controls the Senate and the White House under President Barack Obama.
Goldman Sachs employees have donated at least $367,200 to Romney’s campaign in the 2012 election cycle so far, more than workers at any other company, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’s donation-tracking website, opensecrets.org. Obama, who has called for higher taxes on the wealthy and stricter regulation of the financial industry, got $50,124 from Goldman Sachs workers during the same period, the data show.
Four years ago, employees of New York-based Goldman Sachs gave $1.01 million to Obama’s presidential campaign, according to the website.
Goldman Sachs set aside enough money to pay each of its 33,300 employees an average of $367,057 in salary, bonuses and benefits for 2011, according to the company’s 2011 financial statement published on Jan. 18. A decline in trading revenue helped drive down the average payout per worker from $430,700 in 2010.