Exclusive: Bernanke breaks bread with top bankers
April 4, 2012: 4:36 PM ET
By Stephen Gandel and Dan Primack
Ben Bernanke makes a rare Wall Street appearance.
FORTUNE -- After completing a series of public lectures in Washington, D.C. last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke quietly slipped into New York City for a private luncheon on Friday with Wall Street executives.
Fortune has learned that attendees included Jamie Dimon (J.P. Morgan), Bob Diamond (Barclays), Brady Dougan (Credit Suisse), Larry Fink (Blackrock), Gerald Hassell (Bank of New York Mellon), Glenn Hutchins (Silver Lake), Colm Kelleher (Morgan Stanley), Brian Moynihan (Bank of America), Steve Schwarzman (Blackstone Group) and David Vinar (Goldman Sachs).
Sources say Bernanke spoke at length about monetary policy, in an apparent effort to persuade attendees that they needed to take a more active role in helping to deal with the European debt crisis. He spent virtually no time discussing regulation, although that mantle got taken up by both Dimon (domestic regulation) and Schwarzman (global regulation).
The lunch was held at the New York Fed, and hosted by NY Fed president William Dudley. Before leaving New York, Bernanke separately addressed NY Fed staffers.
