Ex-Treasury Restructuring Chief Millstein Starts Advisory Firm

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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-19/ex-treasury-restructuring-chief-millstein-starts-advisory-firm.html

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Millstein, the U.S. Treasury Department’s former chief restructuring officer who helped oversee the bailouts of American International Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., is forming a turnaround advisory firm.

Millstein, who left the government in February after joining in 2009, plans to focus on restructuring and raising a distressed-debt fund. The former Lazard Ltd. banker, who was an aide to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, will base Millstein & Co. in Washington. He weighed returning to Treasury to work on restructuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or to take a senior-level job at another firm.

“I concluded at least for the moment that I wanted more control over the business that I would have had in an existing bank,” said Millstein, 56, who hired three employees and said he plans to take on more after bonus season on Wall Street. “I had considered going back to the government over the summer, but the confirmation process is so broken it might have proven to be a road to nowhere, and I was ready to get back to work.”

Millstein, who said he plans to open an office in New York as he also seeks investors for his distressed fund, is starting the company amid upheaval in the restructuring ranks that helped governments and corporations navigate the longest recession since World War II.