Morgan Stanley Makes Sales, Trading Hiring Push

Morgan Stanley is in a hiring push that will add as many as 400 trading & sales positions as it tries to revive profits in areas like fixed-income trading, emerging markets & foreign exchange, according to people familiar with the situation. Walid Chammah, co-president of the Wall Street firm, said in al meeting in July the hiring plan is a strategy of rebalancing & repositioning fixed-income & equities trading. The new hires will be split evenly between both sides. "These hires are a good step because Morgan Stanley cut back substantially from fixed income in 2008 & they just didn't anticipate the big recovery," said Brad Hintz, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst. Morgan Stanley has lagged behind rivals since taking on a more conservative stance to survive the financial crisis. But that caution came at a price: 3 consecutive quarters of red ink, while Goldman Sachs Group & J.P. Morgan Chase reaped profits. Morgan Stanley Chair John Mack said parts of the firm got too cautious after its near-death experience last year & the firm's scoured Wall Street looking for talent. 2008 shakeout of Wall Street firms caused a number of high-profile defections & Morgan Stanley picked up key hires from JP Morgan, Citigroup, Credit Suisse Group, UBS & Merrill Lynch, now part of BofA. Morgan Stanley made 200 hires so far, some with year-end compensation guarantees. In the highest-profile hiring, Morgan Stanley named Jack DiMaio, a former Credit Suisse fixed-income head for North America, its new global head of interest rate, credit & currency trading. Morgan also targeted UBS, hiring co-head of Latin America credit trading Al Chinappi & his 6-member team. Morgan Stanley hired Alex Ehrlich as global head of prime brokerage & Clark Hutchison & Bill Templer as global co-heads of listed derivatives. Morgan Stanley is continuing to expand its foreign-exchange team, adding Martine Bond to run the business' prime brokerage unit & David Zakaiem as a senior salesman. Both were hired away from J.P. Morgan.