Felix George Rohatyn ( ; May 29, 1928 – December 14, 2019) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He spent most of his career with Lazard, where he brokered numerous large corporate mergers and acquisitions from the 1960s through the 1990s. In 1975, he played a central role in preventing the bankruptcy of New York City as chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation and chief negotiator between the city, its labor unions and its creditors.
Rohatyn later became an outspoken advocate for rebuilding America's infrastructure, working with politicians and business leaders to craft guiding principles for strengthening infrastructure as co-chair of the Commission on Public Infrastructure. Rohatyn was involved in efforts to form a national infrastructure bank, and assisted in the rebuilding of New York City following Hurricane Sandy as co-chair of the New York State 2100 Commission.
From 1997 to 2000, Rohatyn served as United States Ambassador to France.
Early life
The name Rohatyn has been claimed to be of Tartar origins. Rohatyn was born in Vienna in 1928, the only son of Alexander Rohatyn, a Polish Jew, and Edith (Knoll) Rohatyn, a native of Austria, who divorced his father. His great-grandfather, Feivel Rohatyn, was Chief Rabbi of Zlotshov, 50 km from Ukrainian town Rohatyn. Rohatyn in Ukrainian (Slavic) translates "Horn Stacket" in English, then Zolochiv was in Austrian Galicia, now in Ukraine. His father managed breweries controlled by the family in Vienna, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The family left Austria in 1935 for France. After the German invasion of France in 1940, they fled to Casablanca, Lisbon, and in 1941, Rio de Janeiro, before arriving in the United States in 1942. Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, the Brazilian ambassador to France, provided visas that enabled them to escape France and the Holocaust by sailing from Marseille to Casablanca.
Rohatyn was educated at schools in France. On his arrival in the US in 1942 he joined McBurney School and later attended Middlebury College, where he graduated B.S. in the class of 1949, majoring in physics.
Career
From Middlebury, Rohatyn joined the New York office of the investment bank Lazard Frères under André Meyer. In 1950, he was drafted into the United States Army for two years and ended his military service during the Korean War as a sergeant. He returned to Lazard in 1952 and was made a partner in the firm in 1961, going on to become managing director. While at Lazard he brokered numerous major mergers and acquisitions, notably on behalf of International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), where he became a director in 1966. He also served on the boards of the Englehard Mineral and Chemical Corporation, Howmet Turbine Component Corporation, Owens-Illinois, Pfizer, and the New York Stock Exchange from 1968 to 1972.
New York City fiscal crisis
When the City of New York ran out of money in mid-April 1975, Governor of New York Hugh Carey advanced state funds to the city to allow it to pay its bills, on the condition that the city turn over the management of its finances to the State of New York. Carey appointed Rohatyn to head a blue-ribbon advisory committee to look for a long-term solution to the city's fiscal problems. The advisory committee recommended the creation of the Municipal Assistance Corporation (MAC), an independent corporation which was authorized to sell bonds to meet the borrowing needs of the city. While the deficit increased to $750 million, the MAC was established on June 10, 1975, with Rohatyn as chairman, and a board of nine prominent citizens.