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(Repeats EXCLUSIVE to widen distribution)
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Steve Holland
BOSTON/WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Wall Street lawyer JayClayton, who has worked on high-profile initial public offeringssuch as Alibaba Group, is a leading candidate to headthe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the Trumpadministration, two sources familiar with the matter said onTuesday.
Clayton is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell who specializesin public and private mergers and offerings, an area thatrequires expertise on complex securities regulations andcorporate governance.
Clayton was not available to comment.
He met with President-elect Donald Trump on Dec. 22 andappears to have overtaken a former U.S. Attorney, Debra WongYang, whose name had been floated as a top candidate in earlyDecember.
Yang declined to comment.
Clayton's name surfaced relatively recently and he is one ofa handful of other top contenders. Besides Yang, other namesmentioned include former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins, lawyerRalph Ferrara, and at least one candidate who used to work at aprominent Wall Street hedge fund, but whose name could not belearned.
Activist investor Carl Icahn, who has been tapped byRepublican Trump to play a bigger role in his administration,has been interviewing many of the of the potential SECcandidates.
During the height of the 2008 financial crisis, Claytonworked on major deals involving big banks, including BarclaysCapital's acquisition of Lehman Brothers' assets, thesale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan Chase, and the U.S.Treasury Department's capital investment in Goldman Sachs, according to his law firm's web site.
The position of SEC chair will be very important to WallStreet investors and executives at Fortune 500 companies at atime when Trump has promised to roll back regulation in avariety of areas.
Current SEC Chair Mary Jo White is slated to depart at theend of the Obama administration. Trump is to be sworn in aspresident on Jan. 20.
Under White, a former federal prosecutor, the SEC's focus onenforcement increased. While some of the cases have involved bigfirms, the SEC has also sought to crack down on relatively minorviolations, in the hopes it will deter bigger problems down theroad.
Some investors have said they would like to see the chair bean expert not only in enforcement matters, but have a greaterunderstanding of markets and trading issues as U.S. firms facegreater competition for global capital. (with additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington;editing by Linda Stern and Grant McCool)
