Howard Lutnick, the wealthy Wall Street executive whom President Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Commerce, detailed a complex network of financial holdings on Friday as he prepared to face scrutiny from lawmakers during a confirmation hearing next week.
The financial disclosures showed that Mr. Lutnick, who has built a fortune in brokerages, real estate and financial services, holds at least $800 million in assets, though he is very likely wealthier than the disclosures reveal.
They also laid out executive positions he has held or holds in more than 800 individual firms, and showed that he received in excess of $350 million in income, distributions and bonuses in the past two years from his network of financial services and real estate firms.
In an ethics form filed with the government, Mr. Lutnick said he would divest stakes in the brokerage and real estate firms that have generated his wealth. But his network of business ties could still raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest, as he leads the way on government policies that could have significant effects on businesses and markets, potentially enriching former customers or business partners.
As commerce secretary, Mr. Lutnick would take the lead on carrying out Mr. Trump’s trade plans, which include proposals to impose tariffs on a wide variety of countries. He would oversee an agency with an $11 billion budget and roughly 51,000 workers. Commerce has a vast mandate that includes promoting businesses abroad, restricting U.S. technology exports for national security concerns, along with investing in broadband infrastructure and semiconductor factories around the United States and many other responsibilities.
Mr. Lutnick had worked on Wall Street for decades. He gained national attention when many of the employees at Cantor Fitzgerald, the brokerage firm where he was president and chief executive, died in the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Mr. Lutnick joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 1983, shortly after graduating college, and took over as president and chief executive in 1991.
He built Cantor Fitzgerald into an expansive web of businesses that crossed real estate, financial services and brokerage or trading. He continues to serve as chief executive and chairman at Cantor Fitzgerald, as well as at the brokerage firm BGC, and as the executive chairman of the commercial real estate firm Newmark Group.
He said in the disclosures that he would follow legal requirements to resign from those positions, and not to participate in any government matter in which he, his wife, their minor children or certain close business partners had a direct financial interest. Mr. Lutnick has several adult children, and it remains to be seen whether they will acquire those assets.
For many of the entries, the disclosure forms list a range of values, and sometimes a minimum value. They indicated that Mr. Lutnick has at least $806 million in assets, but he could have significantly more.
His assets include stakes in aerospace and health companies owned by General Electric, as well as Walt Disney, Nasdaq Inc. and Kimberly Akimbo, the Broadway musical. Mr. Lutnick revealed that he had personally borrowed more than $100 million from Bank of America in 2019 and in 2023.
The documents also reflect Mr. Lutnick’s vast collection of real estate properties, including a Washington, D.C., mansion that was formerly owned by the Fox News anchor Bret Baier. They also reveal Mr. Lutnick’s ownership of a penthouse in the Pierre hotel in Manhattan, as well as at least three mansions in the Hamptons.
The Senate will hold a confirmation hearing for Mr. Lutnick on Wednesday.
The disclosure forms also showed Mr. Lutnick serves as chairman or executive in at least four firms with ties to China, including a limited partnership and a limited liability company that BGC runs in China.
BGC set up a joint venture in China in 2010, offering interest rates swaps, bonds and other financial products to Chinese and foreign banks there. Corporate data obtained through Wirescreen, a business intelligence platform, shows that the joint venture is partly owned by a Chinese government agency that manages state-owned enterprises and the provincial government of Shandong. China’s financial market is highly restricted, and operating there often requires government partnerships.
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