After the closing bell Thursday, Morgan Stanley (MS) announced the retirement of co-President Zoe Cruz. The company has appointed Walid Chammah, James Gorman as co-Presidents. The company has also made a number of management changes, effective December 1, 2007.
The New York-based company's co-President Zoe Cruz is retiring from the company, after 25 years of service to Morgan Stanley.
Cruz began her career at Morgan Stanley in 1982, becoming a Vice President in 1986, a Principal in 1988 and a Managing Director in 1990. From 2000 to 2005, she held the position of global Head of Fixed Income, Commodities and Foreign Exchange.
Cruz was a long time supporter of former CEO, Phil Purcell. She became an integral part of the leadership controversy at Morgan Stanley on March 29, 2005 when Purcell replaced then President Stephan Newhouse. Zoe Cruz and Stephen S. Crawford were named Co-Presidents.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Morgan Stanley John Mack, said, Throughout her 25 years of distinguished service, Zoe has always demonstrated a deep commitment to Morgan Stanley. She has helped to build some of our most important and successful businesses and worked tirelessly to strengthen and grow our global franchise.
Further, the company has appointed Walid Chammah and James Gorman as co-Presidents. Chammah will continue to be based in London. They will report to CEO Mack.
Mack said, Walid and James are the right team with the right skills to lead Morgan Stanley now and to drive the Firm forward to a new level of success. They are both exceptional leaders with a proven ability across many years to assemble and lead strong teams and build successful, profitable businesses.
In addition, on a day to day basis, Institutional Securities will report to Chammah, while Wealth Management and Asset Management will report to Gorman.
Walid Chammah, 53, joined Morgan Stanley in 1993 as Head of U.S. Debt Capital Markets. In 2005, Chammah was appointed as Global Head of Investment Banking. In July 2007, he was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Morgan Stanley International, overseeing all of its operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Before joining Morgan Stanley, Chammah served as a managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston.
James Gorman, 49, joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 as the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Global Wealth Management Group. In October 2007, Gorman took on the additional role of Co-Head of Strategic Planning with Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher.
Before joining Morgan Stanley, Gorman held various executive positions at Merrill Lynch and global private client businesses.
Morgan Stanley said Robert Scully will join a newly created office of the Chairman, to focus on the company's key clients. He will report to Mack.
Michael Petrick will oversee the company's trading business and serve as Co-Head of Institutional Securities Sales and Trading, alongside Jerker Johansson.
The company has also named Neal Shear Chairman of industry-leading Commodities business.
Morgan Stanley closed Thursday's regular trading session at $52.34, up $1.16 or 2.17% on a volume of 10.44 million shares compared to a 3-month average volume of 12.82 million shares. In the after-hours, the shares further lost 40 cents. In the past 52-weeks, the stock has been trading in the range of $47.56 - $90.95. During the day, the stock has been trading between $51.83 and $53.43.
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