Gary Cohn Lists at Least $254 Million in Assets in Ethics Filing

(Bloomberg) -- Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who's now President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, listed assets of at least $254 million in an ethics filing.

The assets listed are a minimum figure because the form provides a range of values, and were disclosed Friday in a 41-page report released by the White House. The former Wall Street executive collected income of at least $48.3 million in 2016 and part of 2017, according to the document.

The disclosure contains various estimates of wealth for Cohn, who worked at Goldman Sachs for more than 25 years including the last decade as its president. He is worth about $600 million, according to earlier estimates compiled by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The disclosures show the assets held by officials at the time they joined the government and may include certain investments that they have since sold to avoid conflicts of interest, a senior White House official said Friday in a briefing with reporters. Cohn was appointed to his role on Jan. 25.

The Cohn document provides a much fuller picture of his wealth than did a two-page form released by the federal ethics' agency on March 17. That document showed Cohn owned almost 23.4 million shares of Beijing-based Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. The stake, probably acquired in a 2006 investment made by Goldman Sachs and its private-equity funds, was valued at more than $15 million at the time of the earlier disclosure.

For More: Cohn Offers Plan to Sell China Bank Stake

The March 17 filing also showed that Cohn planned to divest more than $216 million in Goldman Sachs shares, 18 other publicly traded stocks and investments in eight company-managed funds. Cohn's wife, Lisa Pevaroff, owned stakes in three such funds.

Cohn, 56, left Goldman Sachs, where he was considered the heir apparent to Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, in December. He was awarded $20 million in salary and bonus for 2016, the bank previously said in a securities filing.

His position isn't subject to confirmation by the Senate, which means that the disclosures, which he signed Jan. 3, didn't need to be released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The OGE requires nominees to report sources of compensation above $5,000 in a year for the last two calendar years before filing. Other assets, income and retirement accounts are reported for the preceding calendar year.

Other Goldman Sachs alumni have jobs in the administration. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spent 17 years at the investment bank, and Jim Donovan, nominated to be his deputy, was a wealth manager at the firm. Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, also worked at the bank. Dina Powell, a former head of the firm's philanthropic arm, is a senior counselor to the president who is also deputy national security adviser. The March 17 disclosure showed that she had planned to sell 3,543 Goldman Sachs shares and investments in three funds.

--With assistance from Brandon Kochkodin

To contact the reporter on this story: Dakin Campbell in New York at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Eichenbaum at peichenbaum@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl, David Scheer