Frydenberg was approached by a private equity firm, a professional services firm and other investment banks. Also, he was offered non-executive director roles on boards.
In choosing to join Goldman Sachs as a senior adviser, Frydenberg was following in the footsteps of other politicians who made the switch to banking including Paul Keating who joined Lazard and Warwick Smith, who joined Macquarie.
Rothery says Frydenberg’s terms of employment include certain exclusions covering government, regulators and institutions regulated by them.
“This is not a government role – it’s nothing to do with government,” he says.
“In fact, he is precluded from talking to anybody in the government for 18 months. He also will not have any coverage of any institutions where he made appointments to such as the RBA, ASIC, the ACCC and the Takeovers Panel – that’s all excluded.
“Josh has been adamant about that himself as we would be in terms of how seriously we take conflicts.”
Goldman Sachs has a history of appointing former politicians and senior public servants as advisers. Examples include Sir Alex Younger, former head of MI6, Lord Brian Griffiths, Margaret Thatcher’s chief policy adviser, Tito Mboweni, former South African finance minister, Bob Zoellick – former president of World Bank and US trade negotiator, Mario Monte, former Italian prime minister, Peter Sutherland, former attorney general for Ireland and former Chair of BP.
Goldman Sachs leading business adviser in Australia is Charles Curran.
