Early Life and Career
Altman was raised in Brookline. His mother was a librarian and his father was a food broker. He holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
He was a general partner of Lehman Brothers from 1974 to 1977. From 1977 to 1981 he served as the Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury, during which time he helped oversee the then-troubled financial affairs of Chrysler. In 1981, he returned to Lehman Brothers, where he became the co-head of investment banking and served on the board of the company and the management committee. During the 1980s, he was a lecturer and adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management. In 1987, Altman joined the newly-formed Blackstone Group as vice-chairman, head of its mergers and acquisitions advisory business and a member of the investment committee.
Altman served as the Deputy Treasury Secretary, before resigning in 1994 following a record-keeping scandal. In 1996, instead of returning to Blackstone, he co-founded Evercore Partners, a boutique advisory and private equity investment firm in New York City, and currently serves as firm's Chairman.
Altman has served as advisor to two presidential candidates: John Kerry in 2004, and Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Altman is founder and chairman of Evercore Partners, which advised on the GM deal. Evercore, after being paid $46 million by GM pre-bankruptcy, asked for a $17.9 million "success fee." A U.S. bankruptcy trustee termed the fees "staggering" and "inordinately large" and said it "clearly exceeds the bounds of reasonableness" given that "Evercore had no success at finding a purchaser or funder for the Debtors."
Altman is married to journalist Jurate Kazickas.
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