Kindler rising

Robert Kindler took on another role at Morgan Stanley when the firm named him global head of M&A on Feb. 11. Kindler had the same job at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. before he left for Morgan Stanley in 2006, so he was a logical choice to replace M&A chief Gavin MacDonald, who died Dec. 5 at age 47.

"We have very strong people who've been running these regions for a long time," Kindler says of Morgan Stanley's regional M&A managers. Among them are U.S. M&A head Mark Eichorn; Asia M&A chairman Scott Matlock; Edward King, who oversees the bank's M&A business in Asia outside of Japan; and Kenji Fujita, who plays the same role in Japan. New to the group is Dieter Turowski, head of German M&A, who will take the reins in Europe (MacDonald ran European M&A in addition to being global head).

Kindler came to Morgan Stanley as a vice chairman of investment banking, a role he will keep, and he's focused on client relationships and providing in-house banking advice. He's been particularly active in the latter role recently, leading Morgan Stanley's advisory teams on its brokerage unit's joint venture with Citigroup Inc. and on Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc.'s investment in Morgan Stanley last fall. Kindler also advised Morgan Stanley on its 2007 spinoff of credit card company Discover Financial Services.

The 55-year-old Kindler joined J.P. Morgan in 2000 after 20 years as an M&A lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, where he developed a reputation as one of Wall Street's most prolific rainmakers. He's currently advising CF Industries Holdings Inc. on its $2.2 billion hostile bid for Terra Industries Inc. and Time Warner Inc. on the spinoff of its cable division. Morgan Stanley took CF public in 2005, and Kindler has done work for Time Warner for years. He's close to Time Warner CFO Robert Marcus and as a lawyer represented the company, a longtime Cravath client, on its 2000 merger with America Online Inc.