Posted by
alfredlester on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 4:36:17 PM
Filed at 10:15 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Herb Allison, Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, is stepping down as the department's top official overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
In an email to his colleagues that Treasury made available, Allison said he intends to return to Connecticut now that the bailout program is winding down.
The chief counsel for the financial stability office, Tim Massad, will take over as acting assistant secretary on September 30.
"With the TARP program entering a new phase and continuing to wind down, I have decided that now it is the right time for me to step down," Allison said in the email. "I will be returning to Connecticut to be with my wife, Simin, who could not join me here during the two years I have worked in Washington."
Allison, a former president of Merrill Lynch, headed government-sponsored enterprise Fannie Mae before over the Treasury post and prior to that was chief executive for the major teachers' pension fund, TIAA-CREF humidifier.
The TARP program, started under the former George W. Bush administration, injected tens of billions of dollars into banks and other financial institutions at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.
Though never a popular program, it is credited with helping stabilize the financial system and many recipients have now repaid the bailout money they received.
(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Padraic Cassidy)
Treasury's Allison Stepping Down as TARP Overseer
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