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Arthur Levitt
Arthur Levitt at Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2012
25th Chairman of theSecurities and Exchange Commission
In office July 27, 1993 – February 9, 2001
President	Bill Clinton George W. Bush
Preceded by	Richard C. Breeden
Succeeded by	Harvey Pitt
Personal details
Born	Arthur Levitt Jr. (1931-02-03)February 3, 1931 (age 94) Brooklyn, New York
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Marylin Blauner
Relations	Arthur Levitt Sr. (father)
Alma mater	Williams College(B.A.)

Arthur Levitt Jr. (born February 3, 1931) is the former chairman of theUnited States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He served from 1993 to 2001 as the twenty-fifth and longest-serving chairman of the commission. Widely hailed as a champion of the individual investor, he has been criticized for not pushing for tougher accounting rules. Since May 2001 he has been employed as a senior adviser at theCarlyle Group.^[1] Levitt previously served as a policy advisor toGoldman Sachs^[2] and is a Director of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News.^[3]

Levitt grew up in aJewish family inBrooklyn.^[4] Levitt's father,Arthur Levitt Sr., served asNew York State Comptroller for 24 years and was sole trustee of the largest pension fund in America at the time. Levitt attended Brant Lake Camp, a summer camp for boys in theAdirondacks. He attended and graduated fromPoly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn in 1948.

He graduatedPhi Beta Kappa fromWilliams College in 1952, before serving for two years in theAir Force. He first worked as a drama critic forThe Berkshire Eagle, and after theAir Force, he was withTime-Life for five years before selling cattle and ranches as tax shelters.^{[citation needed]}

In 1963, Levitt joined the brokerage firmCarter, Berlind & Weill, founded three years earlier bySanford I. Weill.^[5] Levitt's name was eventually added to the firm's when it was renamedCogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt in the mid-1960s; through a series of mergers the firm eventually evolved intoShearson Loeb Rhoades. This experience with retail customers was a source of his interest in the small investor. After sixteen years onWall Street, Levitt became the chairman of theAmerican Stock Exchange (AMEX) in 1978. In 1989, he left the AMEX to serve as Chairman of theNew York City Economic Development Corporation until 1993.^{[citation needed]}

Before joining the SEC, Levitt ownedRoll Call, a newspaper that coversCapitol Hill, which he purchased from the paper's founder,Sid Yudain, in 1986.^[6] The newspaper was eventually sold toThe Economist for $15 million in 1993.^[7]

Levitt was appointed to his first five-year term as Chairman of the SEC byPresident Clinton in July 1993 and reappointed in May 1998. He left the Commission on February 9, 2001, and was succeeded byHarvey Pitt. Levitt has said that he first learned of his being considered for the job fromThe Wall Street Journal.^{[citation needed]}

At the time Levitt came to the SEC, theFinancial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) had proposed requiring companies to record stock options on their income statements, which split the accounting industry and was opposed by many in the American business community. According to a Merrill Lynch study,expensing stock options would have reduced profits among leading high-tech companies by 60% on average. Congress began to exert pressure on the FASB, and on May 3, 1994, theSenate, led byDemocratic SenatorJoe Lieberman, offered a non-binding resolution urging FASB not to adopt the proposed rule; the vote in favor was 88–9. Concerned that insensitivity to this sentiment in Congress might threaten FASB as an independent standard setter, Levitt urged the FASB to not go ahead with the rule proposal. He later said this "was probably the single biggest mistake I made in my years at the SEC."^[8]

In September 1998 at New York University, he gave a speech entitled "The Numbers Game". It addressed five ways in which corporations were managing earnings (big bath charges, creative acquisition accounting,cookie-jar reserves, materiality, revenue recognition). In his speech, Levitt advocated improving the transparency and comparability of financial statements.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, the SEC under Levitt's leadership approved the exemption of some Enron partnerships from the tight accounting controls of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Without this exemption, critics maintain, the company would have been constrained by strict rules found in 1996 legislation that would have prohibited certain foreign investments and the shifting of debt to its foreign subsidiary shell companies.^{[citation needed]}

During Levitt's tenure at the SEC, he was widely viewed as a pro-investor advocate and received favorable press coverage.

Levitt serves on the Board of Directors for RiskMetrics Group.^[9]

In 2005, Levitt was named a special advisor to theAmerican International Group's board of directors and the board's nominating and corporate governance committee following the resignation of CEO and ChairmanMaurice "Hank" Greenberg, who left after an investigation into the firm'saccounting practices by New York Attorney GeneralEliot Spitzer.^{[citation needed]}

Levitt oversaw an audit published in August 2006, by Kroll Inc. – where he is a consultant – describing how the City of San Diego had allowed a pension deficit of $1.43 billion. The report blamed around 30 city officials, including five incumbent council members. Kroll charged the City of San Diego $21 million for the report, with Levitt's time billed at $900 per hour.^[10]

In January 2001, Levitt received the "Award for Distinguished Leadership in Global Capital Markets" from theYale School of Management.^{[citation needed]}

TheArthur Levitt State Office Building in downtown Manhattan was named for him until it was sold to private developers in 2000.^{[citation needed]}

• Securities and Exchange Commission appointees

• Labaton, Stephen (January 22, 2002). "Exemption Won in 1997 Set Stage For Enron Woes".New York Times.
• "Arthur Levitt".On Wall Street Magazine. June 2005. Archived fromthe original on September 11, 2006. Retrieved2006-09-11. Levitt's biography as told by him to the editorial staff.
• "SEC Biography: Chairman Arthur Levitt". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.Archived from the original on 20 October 2006. Retrieved2006-10-15.

• Levitt, Arthur; Paula Dwyer (October 2002).Take On the Street: What Wall Street and Corporate America Don't Want You to Know. What You Can Do to Fight Back. Random House.ISBN 978-0-375-42178-5. (hardcover);ISBN 978-0-375-71402-3 (trade paperback);ISBN 978-0-553-75694-4 (abridged audio CD).
• Appearances onC-SPAN

• 1931 births
• Living people
• Businesspeople from Brooklyn
• Journalists from Brooklyn
• Jewish American government officials
• Members of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
• Williams College alumni
• American businesspeople in finance
• American male journalists
• American International Group
• Goldman Sachs people
• The Carlyle Group people
• Poly Prep alumni
• Charles H. Revson Foundation
• Clinton administration personnel
• George W. Bush administration personnel

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