Morgan Stanley has announced that John J. Mack will step down as chairman of the firm and leave the board of directors at the end of this year, and James Gorman will take over that position.
The move was expected. Mack also will retire from a full-time role at Morgan Stanley to become a senior advisor to the firm.
Gorman is currently president and chief executive officer, but Morgan Stanley’s board of directors elected him to the additional role of chairman effective Jan. 1, 2012.
Gorman, who ran wealth management at the firm, succeeded Mack as chief executive officer back on Jan. 1, 2010.
Gorman joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 to take over its then-floundering wealth management business. Prior to that, he spent four years at Merrill Lynch, where he led the firm’s private client businesses.
Mack returned to Morgan Stanley to take up the CEO position in 2005. He had previously spent almost 30 years at the firm before losing out in a battle for the top spot to Philip Purcell.
In a statement Thursday, Mack said: “Helping to lead this great firm, most recently as chairman, was the greatest honor of my career. However, I made clear back in 2009 that I would serve in the chairman role for two years and then move on. Now that time has come.”
Gorman thanked Mack for his service in the press statement, adding that the outgoing chairman’s “contributions to the firm are innumerable, but none was more critical than the leadership he provided in guiding Morgan Stanley through a financial crisis that claimed many of our peers.”
In its most recent earnings report in July, Morgan Stanley reported better-than-expected sales and a smaller-than-expected loss in its second quarter, posting a loss of 38 cents a share on sales of $9.3 billion. The revenue number marked a 17% improvement from the year-ago quarter.
Frances A. McMorris is Editor of On Wall Street.
