Christie finance team includes Steve Cohen, Meg Whitman

Chris Christie’s new 2016 national finance team includes billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen.

The Republican’s team, announced Wednesday, is tasked with raising money for the New Jersey governor as he continues his bid for the presidency.

{mosads}Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), who has campaigned with Christie for past elections, is a co-chair of his National Finance Leadership Team.

So is Cohen, who is listed as the 44th richest person in America with a net worth of $11.4 billion in Forbes’s rankings. 

Cohen founded SAC Capital Advisers, which shuttered in 2014 after the company pleaded guilty to fraud and paid a $1.2 billion settlement, according to Reuters. 

It has since continued under the name Point 72 Asset Management and primarily deals with managing Cohen’s wealth, the Reuters report says.

The governor’s finance chair is former Republican National Committee finance chair Ray Washburne, a move first reported by the New York Observer back in January.

Christie’s finance co-chair team also includes former Connecticut Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Foley, The Home Depot co-founder and long-time Christie financial backer Ken Langone and Hewlett-Packard executive and California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.

One of Whitman’s predecessors at HP, Carly Fiorina, is also running for the Republican presidential nomination.

Christie currently sits in ninth place in the RealClearPolitics average of most recent GOP presidential polls, which puts him just inside the cutoff for the first debate next month.

His late entry into the race on the last day of the second fundraising quarter means that he starts slightly behind, as other candidates have had more time to raise money.

Christie’s allied super-PAC raised $11 million in the first six months of 2015, a number that puts him well behind the front-runners and towards the bottom of the field.

–This post was updated at 1:45 p.m.