Michael “Mickey” Gooch owns 43 percent of one of the most successful brokers – GFI Group, which specializes in setting up trades of credit derivatives among titans like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.

The 48-year-old Gooch’s well-honed relationships on the Street have helped GFI grow from four employees in ’87 into ’07’s 1,500-employee powerhouse.

With the 59 percent rise in GFI shares this year, the native Brit’s stake in the company has soared to $1.25 billion. Not too shabby for a guy who got his first finance job out of high school.

Gooch, who pilots his own 151-foot yacht, is just as successful outside of GFI. As Rudy Giuliani’s New Jersey finance chairman, Gooch has helped the Republican front-runner raise more money than Hillary Clinton, the only blue state organization that can make such a boast.

Gooch talked with The Post to about Rudy, his firm and the credit meltdown.

Q: You and your firm are a powerhouse on Wall Street but have not gotten caught up in the credit meltdown. How is that?

Gooch: Because we are a strictly an independent intermediary, we do not have any principal trading positions, or any inventory – and that means when you have meltdowns in the credit market we are not there holding a bunch of paper that needs to be marked down because nothing stays in inventory at GFI. Once we match the buyer and seller we are no longer involved in the trade. All we do is collect fees.

Q: Why did the Merrills and other big Wall Street firms not protect themselves with credit derivatives also?

A: The mistake they made was to keep pumping this stuff out and “inventorying” it – even after the point had been reached where the underlying security was deteriorating.

I think one of the problems is a dislocation between the incentives for the bankers and the brokers who were producing this stuff and pumping it out – and the other groups that may be involved in risk management and investment banking.

Q: Do you support the mortgage foreclosure bailout plan hammered out by the White House?

A: It will be a stay of execution for two to three years on a number of foreclosures. But it is not going to completely stop the foreclosure process in the broader market.

Q: Issuance in the CMOs and CDOs has shut down with the credit crisis. How has this played with your business?

A: It is shut right now. No new issuance. But there is a lot of paper out there that needs to be bought and sold; and so there is an opportunity for a company like GFI that acts as an inter mediary to help those buyers and sellers find the other side of the trade. In terms of new is suance, there won’t be new issuance for a long time. Even though there are no new issuance, there are still trades to be made. In fact, the cheaper it gets, the bigger the deals get so we poten tially start to earn more commissions.

Q: New Jersey has raised a lot of money for Rudy?

A: Rudy has raised more money in the state of New Jersey than any other candidate including the Democrats, and the only other state where he has achieved that is Texas.

Q: Your $1 billion stake in GFI is the larger than any other brokerage CEO on Wall Street. Is that satisfying?

A: Well, when I formed GFI in 1987 – and I scribbled the first business plan on some green paper – I did say my goal was to build the world’s preeminent inter-dealer derivatives company.

Today, we are the leader in credit derivatives. To some extent I did have this goal, but I didn’t necessarily have the valuation personal net worth goal in that regard. I don’t think 20 years ago – when I was 28-years-old – I was necessarily thinking in that regard. I probably would have thought back then that $50 million would have been quite a lot of money. In fact, my wife re minds me that I said when we were first married that if I made $50 million I would retire.

Q: Do you think Rudy has been play ing up his 9/11 record too much?

A: I haven’t heard him bring it up recently. Seems to be not the main topic these days. I tell a joke – when people talk about Iraq – that if Rudy becomes President the first thing he will do is get rid of the Baghdad squeegee boys.