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To: OLDTRADER5 who wrote (174619)	3/30/2005 3:21:23 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 176388

~OT~...OLDTRADER: Any comments on the crisis over at Morgan Stanley...? ________________________________________ Another Morgan Stanley executive resigns From wire reports Updated 3/30/2005 3:07 PM usatoday.com NEW YORK — There was more fallout from Morgan Stanley's (MWD) management shake-up Wednesday, as the investment bank's global head of institutional equity trading resigned, joining a number of other high-ranking executives who have walked out. A company spokeswoman confirmed the departure of Guru Ramakrishnan. His decision to leave came a day after the resignations of his boss, John Havens, the head of the Institutional Equity Division, and Vikram Pandit, president and COO of its Institutional Securities Group. The wave of exits follows Chief Executive Philip Purcell's decision to replace President Stephan Newhouse with two co-presidents, Morgan Stanley veterans Stephen Crawford and Zoe Cruz. Meanwhile, the firm's former Chairman Parker Gilbert and former President Robert Scott are calling for the ouster of Purcell himself, saying the shake-up he engineered is not in the best interest of the company. Purcell denied the departures stemmed from disagreements over strategy or structure. The reorganization, under consideration for eight months, is intended to integrate banking, brokerage and money management, he said. Perhaps to help reassure Wall Street, the company promoted one of its foremost investment bankers, Joseph Perella, to vice chairman; he will report directly to Purcell. Perella, a highly regarded dealmaker, most recently served as chairman of Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities Group. He's also been a leading member of a small group of senior bankers that focused on the firm's most high profile transactions. The details of his new role were not clear. In a statement Tuesday, Morgan Stanley said Crawford and Cruz would help provide new oversight of the company's institutional securities and investment management operations. However, a group of former executives and major shareholders, led by Gilbert and Scott, warned that the restructuring could result in the loss of other executives. The group also released a letter, dated March 3, sent to the current Morgan Stanley board calling for Purcell's departure. The group blamed Purcell for the company's lagging stock price and financial performance. "We believe that the overriding cause of the firm's poor performance is a failure of leadership by Philip Purcell as the firm's CEO," the March 3 letter said. Purcell came to Morgan Stanley, a firm that catered to elite clients, when it merged in 1997 with the more down-market Dean Witter Discover & Co. Purcell won the CEO's job after the merger. The Wall Street Journal said Wednesday that Purcell was disappointed by the actions of the former Morgan Stanley executives .It's been a tumultuous year so far for Purcell, who has endured public challenges to his leadership from former partners. Analysts and investors also continue to raise questions about the company's mix of investment banking and retail brokerage and payment services "It is horrible governance for guys gone 10 years to do this and set themselves up as a new board of directors," he told the newspaper in an interview on Tuesday. The firm's shares have traded in a range of $46.54 and $60.51 over the past 52 weeks. Standard & Poor's on Wednesday reduced their outlook for Morgan Stanley's credit rating to stable, citing "uncertainty about the management structure going forward." Morgan Stanley reported strong first-quarter growth, with profits up 20%. Investors, however, failed to push the shares higher amid concerns that the company was too focused on fixed-income earnings and commodities.