CEO John Mack has reportedly been given the boot.
We kid...though we don't kid that we received a very cloak and dagger email implying as much from the address John Mack Must Die (all one word) at yahoo.com, signed "Z." Anyway. Financial News legitimately reports that MS has cut 31 managers and executive directors globally to date, with 25 of the involuntary departures occurring late last week. Included in the carnage were Charlotte Wall and Philippe Lopategui, MDs on Morgan Stanley's stock lending team in London, part of the bank's very profitable prime brokerage business that helps hedge funds short stocks. "I can only imagine what the departures have been like in other [less lucrative] divisions," a source told FN. Off the record, we've heard that Morgan's We Fucking Love Subprime desk has suffered a decent amount of cuts, though less than you might've imagined, owing in part to John Mack's slightly off-colour sense of humor, and the fact that it employs three-quarters of the firm's softball team.
Morgan Stanley culls 30 top-level staff [Financial News]
Posted by guest , May 19, 2008 3:50PM
Test comment
Posted by guest , May 19, 2008 3:51PM
Surprised to see John Mack fall.
Posted by guest , May 19, 2008 3:56PM
@3:51 duh. You get a D- in reading comprehension.
Posted by guest , May 19, 2008 4:50PM
LEH layoffs?
Posted by guest , May 20, 2008 7:55AM
Sparky here has closely watched the entire Morgan Stanley/John J Mack saga as it played out; and frankly he's apalled that Mack is still running the show at MS.
For starters, the guy's done a terrible job at running this giant firm; why just look at what's happened to MS's balance sheet since the greed-driven fool took over!!
And lastly, if America wants to ever restore its equity markets to the credible state they were in during the pre-hedge fund era, crooked industry titans like Mack simply must be openly discarded.
And if you don't think Mack is a crook, then it's obvious you haven't read all the transcripts and documents that stemmed from the Gary Aguirre whistleblower matter where Aguirre, an SEC investigator, was xeroing in on Mack as the tipster who unlawfully informed Pequot Capital Management of the upcoming acquisition of Heller Financial by General Electric, a tip that translated into a $ 18+ million gain for Pequot.
With all his connections, not to mention obviously-corrupted management within the SEC, Mack was never even charged!!
To conclude, the Street should do what's right and can this well-connected crook.
Sparky