Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) is losing the co-head of its North American depository institutions banking group, Malpass Durkee, to retirement. The banker, who joined Morgan Stanley in September 2007 from Merrill Lynch, is leaving to deal with some family issues, sources said.
Over the years, Durkee has advised on such deals as Wachovia Corp.'s ill-fated $25 billion acquisition of Golden West Financial Corp. He also advised on Regions Financial Corp.'s $26 billion merger with AmSouth Bancorp. Durkee's departure leaves John Esposito in charge of the North American effort.
His departure is a bit of bad timing for Morgan Stanley, which last week lost vice-chairman Kirk Wilson to Greenhill & Co. Inc. Wilson will be leading Greenhill's financial institutions group efforts. Also departing: Maurice Marchesini, who headed financial services advisory for the western U.S.. Marchesini decamped to UBS to join Sean Minnihan, who had been at Banc
of American Securities, where he headed the financial technology and securities group.
Sources say that although the three departures are coming one after the other, they are unrelated. The highly regarded Wilson, one says, left because he wanted to return to more M&A advisory work, and had found himself devoting more time to capital markets transactions at Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley's FIG group is headed by Ruth Porat, who became its global head in late 2006.
- Vipal Monga
See Movers & Shakers for more personnel changes
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