NY Fed board to meet Sat on president search: sources

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Federal Reserve's board of directors is meeting on Saturday to discuss potential candidates for the bank's next president, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The New York Fed is nailing down a short-list for a successor to Timothy Geithner, whose confirmation hearing for the post of Treasury secretary is expected next week, said one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A New York Fed spokesman declined to comment.

Staff at the New York Fed had been told there were six candidates under consideration, another person close to the New York Fed said.

The search for a president of the New York Fed is a closely watched process, even in calmer times.

The bank is the most important of the regional Fed banks and the only one to have a permanent vote at the central bank's policy-setting meetings. It has been thrust into the public eye as the Fed's go-to crisis manager on Wall Street.

Among the likely front-runners are Kevin Warsh, a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors; Bill Dudley, head of markets at the New York Fed; and Terrence Checki, the New York Fed's head of emerging markets and international affairs group, according to Christopher Whalen, managing director at Institutional Risk Analytics and a former New York Fed staffer.

All three have played key roles in the management of the current economic crisis and are respected on Wall Street.

Warsh has been at the Fed board of governors since 2006 and has been the board's liaison to Wall Street. At the time of his appointment, his nomination was criticized as political and questions were raised about his relatively young age and experience.

His age could be a hurdle this time as well, analysts said, since at 38 he would be the youngest New York Federal Reserve Bank president ever.

Warsh worked at the White House's National Economic Council before he was appointed to the Fed board in 2006 by President George W. Bush, and has also worked as a mergers and acquisitions banker at Morgan Stanley. Warsh's boss at the NEC, Stephen Friedman, is now the chairman of the New York Fed board and leading the search committee for Geithner's replacement.

Bill Dudley has helped to develop the New York Fed's emergency liquidity facilities, which would also help him hit the ground running.

But he is a former Goldman Sachs economist and analysts speculate his ties to Goldman could work against him, given the bank's fall from grace during the credit crisis. If Friedman, who also worked at the investment bank, were to choose another Goldman alum, that could raise hackles, they said.

Terrence Checki has held a number of positions within the New York Fed and has worked as the bank's chief international trouble-shooter for over two decades. He is well known and respected in the industry but has preferred to stay behind the scenes.

"If Friedman wants to serve the public interest, he has to see that filling this position is about competency and credibility," said Institutional Risk Analytics' Whalen. "There is no time for personality. I told Friedman he would need to pick a candidate beyond reproach,"

Other names that have been touted are Peter Fisher, co-head of fixed income at BlackRock; John Lipsky, the IMF's deputy first managing director; and John Thain, former chief executive of Merrill Lynch & Co.

(Editing by Dan Grebler)