Equities and fixed-income merged in Morgan Stanley overhaul

Morgan Stanley has made broad changes to its organisational structure and reporting lines, including ditching the separation of equities and fixed-income.

Head of fixed-income Neil Shear becomes head of trading, while institutional equities head Jerker Johansson becomes head of clients and services. Together, Shear and Johansson remain co-heads of institutional securities sales and trading, and will continue to be based in New York. Ivan Freeman will become their chief operating officer. Meanwhile, Colm Kelleher, the New York-based head of global capital markets, now reports jointly to Johansson and head of investment banking Walid Chammah.

Regional profits and losses will now be the responsibility of Morgan Stanley’s newly-appointed regional heads of sales and trading. These are Phil Newcomb and Rich Portogallo in the US, Colin Bryce in Europe, and Danny Hegglin and Jialin Liu in Asia. They will all report functionally to Shear and Johansson, and regionally to Jonathan Chenevix-Trench in Europe and Hans Schuettler in Asia. Additionally, Cory Spencer will be the US regional head of investment banking.

Shear, Johansson, Chammah, Chenevix-Trench and Schuettler will also be joined on a new committee by Eileen Murray, the bank’s New York-based head of global operations and technology. The Institutional Securities Group Operating Committee will be chaired by Morgan Stanley’s co-president Zoe Cruz. While the changes may not make much difference for many of the bank’s employees day-to-day, they are intended to increase opportunities for cross-selling.