Senior Morgan Stanley officer quits to join Lehman Brothers

Senior Morgan Stanley officer quits to join Lehman Brothers

	Published : Thu, 08 Dec 2005 10:05 By : Amy Watts Print this Story

LONDON: U.S. securities firm Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has hired top Morgan Stanley functionary Michael Tory to join its European management committee. Tory has been heading Morgan Stanley's investment banking in the U.K. and handling such important clients as BP and HSBC. Most recently he had worked on the acquisition of Marconi by Ericsson.

Morgan Stanley said Tory will be replaced by Brian Magnus and Heremy Heywood as co-heads of the department. The No. 2 U.S. securities firm is fourth among advisers on takeovers involving British companies this year. It had recently eliminated 25 senior investment banking positions as part of chief executive John Mack's new plan to boost productivity. The firm had lost another important officer last month, Dhiren Shah, head of technology investment banking. Shah has joined Greenhill & Co. as a managing director in New York.

New York-based Lehman Brothers, the fourth biggest securities firm in the U.S., has been engaging bankers in Europe with a view to generate more business in the region.

Two other Morgan Stanley staffers -- Richard Atterbury, who handled financing and takeovers for buyout firms and William Verekar -- had joined Lehman. These hirings highlight the firm's efforts to build its mergers and acquisitions business in Europe, which has lagged in growth in the U.S. and its chief executive officer Richard Fuld's intention to branch out from its focused fixed-income trading into other revenue streams.

Tory, 44, has been with Morgan Stanley for 10 years after he left S.G. Warburg in 1995.

The exit of senior officers from Morgan Stanley, analysts point out, indicates the serious nature of task on hand for Mack, the firm's new CEO, in revitalising the firm after years of lacklustre performance. Other senior bankers to have left the institution in recent months include the legendary Wall Street dealmaker Joseph Perella and Terry Meguid.

Mack had ousted incumbent Philip Purcell in a controversial long drawn-out succession row. He has brought in changes in strategy and style, one of them being the new employment contracts, which specify that executive directors have to provide six months' notice period and managing directors' three months' instead of the current one month's.