Morgan Stanley selected Ted Pick to become its new chief executive officer, succeeding James Gorman after a 14-year run that reshaped the Wall Street bank.
Pick, a co-president and three-decade veteran of the firm, will be elevated to the top role in January and join the board, the bank said in a statement Wednesday. Gorman, 65, will stay on as executive chairman.
In tapping Pick, 54, the firm is turning to the man credited with spurring a revival in its trading business after a perilous stretch during the 2008 financial crisis — a period when clients ditched Morgan Stanley and doubts about its ability to survive reverberated around Wall Street.
The Australia-born Gorman, once a surprise choice for CEO, rescued the bank from that near collapse and engineered a multi-year transformation with wealth management at its core.
That strategic overhaul was accelerated by two signature deals announced in 2020, turning Morgan Stanley into a money-management powerhouse barreling toward a $10 trillion goal — and catapulting its market value above that of archrival Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
"He had a singular vision for the place, and over 15 years took us from near bankruptcy to a winning place," Pick said in his first interview after the selection was announced. The CEO-elect said he will maintain Morgan Stanley's direction and anticipates no change in strategy.
Saperstein & Wealth Unit
Pick beat out two other CEO contenders: Co-President Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz, who has led investment management.
Morgan Stanley said Wednesday that Saperstein will become head of wealth and investment management and named Simkowitz co-president and head of institutional securities.
That would avoid the dramatic exits that often play out on Wall Street when new leaders take over.
"I can't remember any other succession where the contenders decided to stick around," said Brennan Hawken, an analyst at UBS Group AG. "That for me is a win for Morgan Stanley."
The succession saga at the New York-based bank has played out methodically — and somewhat publicly — since Gorman's chief deputy, Colm Kelleher, exited in 2019.
Soon after, Gorman unveiled the biggest leadership shakeup in a decade, positioning a small group of lieutenants as his most likely successors. One of them, Jon Pruzan, exited earlier this year to be president at Don Mullen's investment firm Pretium.
Gorman said in May that he intended to step down within a year, setting off the final three-way race. Pick was viewed as the most likely heir to Gorman, thanks to his role overseeing the more complex institutional securities business — which until recently was also the more dominant division.
But with the bank's recent acquisitions, the wealth-management unit has been capturing a bigger piece of the revenue pie, helping lift the prospects of Saperstein, who runs that arm.
Gorman has maintained that the next CEO doesn't necessarily have to run the biggest business, noting he never would have landed the job because he was heading the smallest and worst-performing business.
