Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley [Patricia Beard] on Blue Blood and Mutiny Revised Edition and millions of other books are.
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- Book Review: 'Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley'
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He confirmed that they were exploring the option with a proxy firm. Within hours the directors had heard the news. Unbeknownst to the Eight, the board was already making final preparations to give them what they wanted. Clients and institutional investors were irate. The loss of talent and the threat that more people were considering leaving was leaching energy out of the firm.
The directors were under scrutiny by the nonprofit governance watchdog, the Corporate Library, which gave the Morgan Stanley board a grade of D. That could lead to unwelcome attention by regulators whom Purcell and Don Kempf had already antagonized, and to stockholder lawsuits. No one wanted to be remembered as a loser in a fight that made Wall Street history.
Whatever the directors did now, the fight for the soul of Morgan Stanley would be a line in many of their obituaries. It was time to act before regulators decided to investigate whether the board had failed in its fiduciary responsibility. On a nonexecutive directors conference call in late May, Chuck Knight [a Purcell-appointed board member and chairman emeritus of Emerson, formerly known as Emerson Electric] reported that investors were telling him that he could not stick with Purcell any longer. He had decided Purcell had to go. The final negotiations for the divorce continued in the utmost secrecy in Chicago, New York, Utah, and on conference calls.
Purcell had demonstrated what an implacable negotiator he was during the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter merger; defeat made him even tougher. The board was eager to finish the process so Morgan Stanley could get back on track, and they could get on with their lives. They made significant concessions and dispensed a large chunk of stockholders' money to complete the process.
Ironically, if his successor turned the firm around, Purcell would make even more money. Purcell took care of his loyalists. Someone who was there said the board felt badly because by agreeing that Crawford and Cruz should be co-presidents under a CEO who was fighting for his life, they might have ruined their careers.
Zoe Cruz refused a Crawford- type deal. She continued without a contract while she waited to find out whom she would be working for, and whether she would still have a job under the new CEO. She and Crawford remained on the board during the search. Other Purcell lieutenants with special pay packages were John Schaefer, head of Retail Brokerage, and Mitchell Merin, Head of Asset Management, the two areas of the firm that had repeatedly been singled out for their poor performance. Sidwell remained with the firm, and in November , he agreed to revise his contract.
He left Morgan Stanley in The agreements, which were made before the new chairman and CEO was hired, would be part of Purcell's legacy. He was adamant that the board should not replace him with any member of the Group of Eight; anyone who left during the fight, including Pandit, Havens, Newhouse, Perella, and Meguid; or John Mack.
He could not get successor exclusions in writing, but Chuck Knight, Head of the Compensation, Management Development, and Succession Committee, wanted to announce the names of people who would not be considered. Other directors told Knight that making that kind of public announcement would be counterproductive, narrow the pool, and prolong the fight, and exhorted him not to do it.
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The Morgan Stanley board needed to look dignified and in control, not petty and vengeful. By that time, they were openly divided. The early-warning group was represented by Laura Tyson, who had proposed that they perform some serious due diligence six months earlier, and had been outspoken all along, despite being shouted down when the discussions got heated. Some of the former CEOs of industrial and manufacturing companies, who came out of more autocratic systems, in particular Chuck Knight and Mike Miles, were angry that they had been cornered.
THERE are insider accounts, and then there are really insider accounts. With the cooperation of the rebels, including Anson Beard, a former brother-in-law of Ms. Purcell, the chief executive of the combined firm. From through , Mr. Purcell, the aloof Midwesterner who had run Dean Witter , the retail brokerage, sat atop Morgan Stanley, the bluest of the blue-blood firms. The merger promised to transform the financial industry, but the melding of the consumer and institutional businesses did not go smoothly.
As the firm stumbled repeatedly, the rebels began a very public fight to oust Mr. Then the tech bubble burst, the Private Wealth Management business fell off, and it never rebounded. Over ten years, eight different managers tried to run the division. I thought they should leave PWM alone until the thing rolled over and died from broker attrition.
It would be folly to try to integrate it. At Morgan Stanley you came to work every day thinking about how you can generate another dollar. Phil woke up and asked himself, How can we save more money? They reported that the cost of a trade on the Morgan Stanley platform was higher, but was coming down rapidly, would soon be cheaper, and was designed to handle more complex transactions.
The Dean Witter platform was built for a low-tech securities business and could not process all the Morgan Stanley products. When Scott presented the results, Purcell told him there was something wrong with the analysis. Major clients complained that he was not available to meet with them. Purcell never called Stephen A. The idea was to relieve top bankers of administrative burdens, and to create a SWAT team for clients. The irony was that, as a number of investment bankers commented, when he did interact with clients whom he considered important, he was very good: Nevertheless, the Morgan Stanley bankers had been accustomed to being able to access Fisher and Mack for client meetings more often, and more informally.
Peter Karches was a particular target. He challenged Purcell in management committee meetings, sometimes to get under his skin, but often on substantive matters.
Purcell told Mack he was going to ask Karches to leave, and Mack went into action, speaking privately to individual directors. They said they liked Karches, but if Purcell wanted him gone, he should go. Karches was having a record year, despite the telecom loss. They had dinners together, held off-sites, made plans, and supported one another. It looked like a hopeful beginning to a new phase of leadership. His appointment was irrational. He knew nothing about the business. Morgan Stanley had never needed a symbol to distinguish itself.
It was Ronaldson Slope, a rare and ancient typeface. When we went to a new printer we had to take the type with us. The use of that typeface, printed in blue, was our logo. It was a subtle thing. She seemed to believe that Dean Witter had to be protected from Morgan Stanley, and the Morgan Stanley lawyers found her hostile and defensive. The county had passed a law preventing local governments from raising property taxes, and a trader for the county was aggressively trying to generate income to make up for the shortfall.
In , interest rates rose, and he got caught on the wrong side of the market. The county sued a number of broker-dealers, including Morgan Stanley. Edwards had been well regarded during her years as chief counsel at Dean Witter, but her time with Morgan Stanley after the merger was rockier, and she lasted only two years in that position. Curry was a graduate of Columbia University, an African-American son of a prominent surgeon.
Curry was featured in an eight-page story, modeling naked and aroused. The photographs were taken before he was hired at Morgan Stanley. Leuthke, who claimed that he had been in the U. Leuthke asked for a job at Morgan Stanley as a reward for his assistance. The case dragged on with a great deal of exposure in the newspapers, while Curry and Leuthke captured a little fame. On May 18, , the district attorney dropped charges against Curry and opened investigations into Morgan Stanley for not reporting the Leuthke pay- a c r i s i s o f c o n f i d e n c e a n d a c u lt u r e c l a s h ment.
The subject was discussed repeatedly at the management committee meetings, and before the media hype got even more out of control, Morgan Stanley settled with Curry. Some years after the frenzy had died down, it came out that he had run up enormous debts, coasting on the inference that Morgan Stanley had secretly paid him millions. His parents sued him because he had used their house in the Hamptons as collateral for a loan.
Christine Edwards resigned on June 10, , after two years at Morgan Stanley. Kirkland and Ellis is one of the titans of the Midwest bar. They try major cases, and actually go to trial. Morgan Stanley hit the news again in September when an administrative assistant, Elena Drill, and a boyfriend were found dead in her apartment, in a murder-suicide. She told the Human Resources department that she had been sexually harassed. We disagree on virtually everything. Maybe one of us should leave.
The two of you have to work this out. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. What do we want to be? Purcell went off to make phone calls and returned in time to hear the results.
Book Review: 'Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley'
All of the teams came to the same conclusion: Ten teams are telling us something. The employees believe we have a crisis of leadership, and leadership is in denial. He had already taken Asset Management away from Mack; now he removed Retail from his purview, left him with Investment Banking, and added Discover to his responsibilities. Around that time, Mack says he came close to leaving. His dissatisfaction was so apparent that two of the directors, Dan Burke, who had been on the old Morgan Stanley board, and Michael Miles asked him to have lunch with them to discuss how to mend the situation.
And with the serial evolution of other people getting shot, there was more focus on not taking risk. In late , he took his two sons, who were in their early twenties, and a friend and former colleague, Thomas R. Nides, who was now working in Washington, D. He really cared about what they said. I went home to my wife and said I hope when I make big personal decisions I have that kind of relationship with my kids. Very few people, and none that I know of, would have picked up their bags and left. As Fisher and others from the Morgan Stanley side had left the board, Purcell had replaced them with people who shared his management style and corporate philosophy.
In addition to the four directors he brought with him from Dean Witter, he had added Charles F. Knight, the chairman emeritus of St. Louis—based Emerson formerly Emerson Electric , which blue blood and mutiny was a supplier to Sears, brought the Midwest contingent up to seven out of eleven. Like most of the directors Purcell chose, he was a suitable candidate for the board of a major public company, but like them, he was steeped in industrial corporate management and disregarded the differences between a manufacturing business and one that was entirely dependent on talent.
Only two directors were left from the Morgan Stanley side: Later in John E. Jacob, the African-American executive vice president of global communications at Anheuser-Busch, was added to the board. We have to be ready to respond right now. Usually decisions of this magnitude would be discussed before they were made. Mack publicly announced that he was leaving Morgan Stanley that afternoon. Those who criticize John Mack say that he made two major mistakes: Bob Scott should have been a good number two for Purcell. As Scott later said, he was never really in charge.
He was elated and optimistic. First Boston was under federal and criminal investigations. It felt so phony and disconnected. When the last slide, an image of the triangle, went up on the screen, Newhouse unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open to show that he was wearing a T-shirt printed with the new logo. The ghost of J. If seen as a delta, it symbolizes change and our inclination to innovate. As the body count rises, Phil Purcell consolidates his power. Clinton was one of the most effective presidential speakers in a century, and most of the attendees were excited to have a chance to hear him.
Some even threatened to withdraw their business. Only weeks before, Clinton had used the prerogative of the president to issue some controversial pardons. The Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, an indication of poor judgment, at the least, was also recent. Managing director Michael L. First quarter results were down all over the Street: Net underwriting revenues at Goldman Sachs had plummeted 36 percent. Layoffs were up, and bonuses were down. He looked proud and cool and, of course, taller than almost everyone in the room, but it was, understandably, a tough day. The Wall Street Journal picked that morning to run a devastating page-one story.
Purcell when he learned that his jig was up.
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It opened with the soundtrack from Chariots of Fire, setting the tone for a long, arduous race that demanded superhuman endurance and skill. By then, the younger group would be ready to take charge. Wien, speaking as J. So I thought I would come back and meet the new people running the place. What do you make of that? Smart and tough as nails. This is a deal I want to do. Purcell had his eye on another candidate, Steven Crawford, whom Wien did not include in the skit. Crawford shined his boots. Crawford, a Roman Catholic family man, was a younger version of the men Purcell usually felt most comfortable with.
He was a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he had played on the lacrosse team, and he was a runner and a golfer, one of the few younger executives who played golf with Purcell. He and his wife and three children lived in Bronxville, an idyllic suburb only twenty-eight minutes by train from Grand Central Station. Kennedy moved his family there from Boston, and John F. Kennedy went to school in Bronxville before he was sent to boarding school at Choate. Bronxville was still an attractive choice for Wall Street executives and other professionals who worked in the city.
The commute was easy, the schools were good, and there were two clubs where children learned to swim and play tennis. The Crawfords belonged to the golf club, Siwanoy. Houses in Bronxville were handsome and spacious, many in the s Tudor revival style. It ought to be a democracy today.
We say we have three constituencies—our employees, our clients, and our shareholders. We could give clients votes based on the amount of business they do, employees votes based on the amount of money they make, and shareholders votes based on the number of shares they own. On September 11, , the move was six months away. That morning Bob Scott kissed his wife, Karen, good-bye and told her he was going downtown to the hotel across the street from the World Trade Center to speak before several hundred members of the Association I blue blood and mutiny of Business Economists.
He had just begun his presentation at 8: Scott thought a bomb had gone off. Hotel employees directed the audience into the service corridor, and Scott worked his way to the lobby, which was crowded with guests, some of them fresh out of the shower and wrapped in towels. At Broadway, the management committee was meeting when somebody came into the room and handed John Schaefer a note. He left the meeting, which continued, and then he came back. About three minutes later, he came back in. Bob Scott reached his wife, Karen, and told her that he was okay, and went over to Seventh Avenue to start planning.
The number was already posted on national television at In the event, they waited three days. We had a very substantial authorization from our board that we could use, if, in our opinion, the market pushed our stock down below blue blood and mutiny what we thought was fair value. Most of them had died trying to help others get out of the building. All the employees were invited, and the service was held by a priest, a rabbi, and a Muslim cleric; and Purcell and several employees who survived the attack spoke.
It was a sight that very few could look on for long. The Texaco building was a vast two-story structure that had the air of a suburban high school in Anywhere, U. The location was hardly an attraction for bright young people who wanted to live in New York, where the energy and the clients were. At Morgan Stanley solidarity was traditionally maintained W blue blood and mutiny through debate and disagreement. Constructive, but often heated arguments were a characteristic of the meetings of the Strategic Engagements Group, which Terry Meguid set up and Joe Perella chaired.
Purcell could not embrace the Morgan Stanley way, and he viewed it as disruptive to the chain of command. The market was in bad shape after the technology bust, and the terrorist attack was likely to exacerbate the problems. Predictably, there was a backlash. The public responded to the technology crash by blaming Wall Street, echoing the allegations that had led to the Pecora hearings during the Great Depression.
She graduated from DePauw University in with a degree in psychology, took a job as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, then went back to school and received her M. Over a thirteenyear period, between and , her picks had an average annual return of 46 percent, and from to , the average annual return was 67 percent. When the SEC investigated alleged fraud after the tech bubble burst, Meeker was singled out.
Judger Pollack, who was ninety-six years old, and had only stopped taking the subway to work a year earlier, was the third-oldest active judge on the federal bench. He cut his teeth as a lawyer in the securities industry during the Crash and had a keen sense of risk and responsibility. I think Dick Fisher would have been more willing to take a hard line about things we had conviction about.
Under basic SEC procedure, the parties in a settlement cannot say anything to disparage the settlement, or to suggest that they were innocent of the charges. As a result, we were able to offer our clients the best execution at the lowest cost through our steady investment in systems rather than through large commitments of risk capital. That technology had helped increase market share in equity trading.
And they are curious to see who will withstand the strain and who will buckle under. Snow, as the story noted, was a midwesterner. A few days after the Snow visit, two Times reporters interviewed I blue blood and mutiny Purcell at Broadway. The stock price was down It was up to others to decide whether he found his way to the top of Morgan Stanley by tooth, claw, or by some gentler manner.
The Times story notes that the internal strategic planning staff that Purcell established when Dean Witter went public in to look at merger and acquisition opportunities was still in force and there was speculation that two candidates were American Express and Bank One. He was overseeing the disintegration of areas where Morgan Stanley had broken new ground in the past. We were always a place of innovation. But it was abstract. How do you really do it? You should become the sponsor of this initiative.
I look at the chart, and nobody but my secretary reports to me. As proposed, I will not do that. That afternoon Scott was on his way to Rhode Island to speak at a conference. I called him and said, I want you to have lunch with me and tell me the truth. Why would you go quietly? He was the last of the future Group of Eight to leave as an active executive. There had never been a retirement evening for Dick, and when Dick got up to speak, everybody stood up. It felt like a tenminute standing ovation.
Dick was incredibly touched. That got a really chilly response.
Then Bob got up and was in tears. A lot of us were. Purcell won two of the awards. It could have been worse; Morgenson awarded Donald J. Purcell chose Stephan Newhouse to replace Bob Scott as president. Between and , Newhouse visited more than twenty countries. He knew and was trusted by clients worldwide. Newhouse had one strike against him: The depressed stock price was a disincentive to stay at Morgan Stanley for executives who received part of their bonuses in stock or options.
On the rare occasions when the executives were invited to board meetings, they made closely edited presentations. Around the same time in , Phil Purcell was again discussing selling Morgan Stanley to a big bank. He had less to sell than in the glory days of and , when the stock was at its peak. But Purcell concluded it was a terrible business, put it under Asset Management, and got rid of the entire team. It seemed as though we were steadfast. Judge Richard Berman called Cari M. Purcell had negotiated the agreement himself, taking over from general counsel Donald Kempf, and spending much of Sunday negotiating on the phone directly with Cari Dominguez until midnight.
The Arts, which was part of the complex built for the Olympics, was a luxuriously spare modern hotel set in gardens overlooking a blue Mediterranean harbor and neatly docked rows of boats. The hotel had fourteen meeting rooms, each named for a different Spanish artist, musician, or architect, and two large ballrooms for presentations.
Pandit is more engaging and engaged, pleasant and substantive, but possibly nervous; he is wringing his hands as he speaks. Meguid, who chaired the meeting, is relaxed, direct, and convincing, combining quick punchy videos with a presentation about A blue blood and mutiny improving performance in a tough market.
Joe Perella, who shambles up to the front of the room, wearing a sweater draped around his shoulders, has the presence of a late-night talk show host delivering a serious message in an entertaining way. Terry Meguid later said that the Barcelona conference was a turning point for the Investment Banking Division. People were so upbeat. Phil might try to sell us. What do you think? Only the board can make a decision about him. They get all their information from him, and what they think of us, he tells them. He will inevitably try and pick off someone in this group.
He was advising them to avoid succumbing to any attempts Purcell might make to pit them against one another, or to split one or more of them off. He told them to dismiss the idea that there would be a revolt. Newhouse was based in London and traveled constantly; and while Pandit and Cruz were civil, their relationship was reaching a crisis point. He became more conservative because he wanted to survive and be part of bringing back the old Morgan Stanley.
He had two choices: Some believed that he was pitting them against each other to maintain his own power. By believing that a group of insiders was plotting against him, Purcell would force everyone who was at lunch that day to make a choice. It was time-consuming, the stakes were high, and the atmosphere was taut. The suit took a disastrous turn in the fall of Judge Maass said she could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was this with the dust bunnies, or where was it?
On the bookcase were photographs of Anne Purcell, whom none of the Morgan Stanley people had ever met, seven sons, daughters-in-law, and multitudes of grandchildren. Morgan Chase was the sentimental favorite. The idea of reuniting the House of Morgan had been broached before, in , when representatives of Morgan Stanley, J. The plan disappeared too. When Rynecki asked Purcell about the rumors, he angrily denied them. Before Purcell teed off, he and Rynecki sat outside the grille room, and Purcell pulled out folders, clippings, and e-mails, ignoring the standard rule that members and their guests are not to appear to be conducting business at a private club.
The two men set out for a round of golf, with Rynecki jostling along in the cart, asking questions. Purcell, slightly loosened up by a beer, defended his strategy. Turning his back on the question of his future, he walked off toward the clubhouse. Eisner, the CEO of Disney. Willingham was one of three African-American head coaches in the team Division 1-A. In , Notre Dame rebounded to 6—5, but the Southern California loss was disastrous. On November 30, Willingham was dismissed. Meyer did not take the job. We thought, there he goes again.
I think it was the wrong move. What he basically said is that the value system of the university and the value system of the athletic department blue blood and mutiny have been totally disrupted. To violate the values of Notre Dame was too close to violating the values of the church. The top members of the management committee were paid so handsomely that it raised questions. Purcell told Pandit to go ahead and show it to Cruz.
When she read the criticisms she was outraged. Cruz wrote a two-page rejoinder and sent it to Pandit. Laura Tyson, dean of the London Business School. She knew a number of senior Morgan Stanley executives, who attended some of the same conferences, in particular the prestigious World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
The meeting gave Cruz the satisfaction of knowing that a director she believed would be fair had heard her side of the story. The Copper Arch portfolio was deployed in large chunks, and during the fall of , the fund had bought about one million shares of Morgan Stanley stock. Sipprelle had worked at Morgan Stanley for thirteen years and was head of U. Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns. Goldman was up percent, Merrill was up 90 percent, while Morgan Stanley had recovered only 69 percent of its value. Sipprelle would later say that he purposely avoided attacking Purcell directly.
It was my idea, and I was acting alone. Whatever the intention, both actions would serve to support Purcell. An extraordinary number of people were genuinely grieved that he was gone. Fisher was called a modern-day Medici, a great businessman, philanthropist, and supporter of the arts. Other publicity materials stated that Purcell had been the chairman of Morgan Stanley for more than twenty years, rolling over Parker Gilbert and Dick Fisher, and rolling in his role at Dean Witter.
He and his wife, Barbara Knowles Debs, former president of Manhattanville College and of the New-York Historical Society, were holding their annual Christmas party that night at their apartment overlooking the East River. Debs considered calling the party off and made some phone calls, but the people he spoke to decided that they would like to be together. On the night he died, the couch remained empty.
Colleagues stayed late at each party, talking about Fisher and, inevitably, about Purcell. The architect of Morgan Stanley was gone. F ick Fisher died on the day that new managing directors were appointed. The tradition of Mor- D t h e s i e g e o f ph i l i p p u rc e l l gan Stanley is that the welfare and reputation of the Firm is more important than that of any of its individuals.
On January 5, when he assumed that Purcell and the directors had had the letter for a month, Sipprelle, whose one million shares of MWD in his fund were trading within a couple of points of the average price at which he bought the stock, released his letter to the press. When Purcell learned that the Wall Street Journal was running a story, he hastily called a management committee meeting.
He asked them what they thought he should do about it. My view is that this is not going away. Decide who your inner council is going to be, and deal with it. A Time for Change. Marsh and Miles had both been senior executives at Kraft, and Brennan was a former Kraft board member. Knight and John E. Jacob were directors of Anheuser-Busch. With the exception of the British Sir Howard, the German Zumwinkel, and Tyson, they were also geographically and socially entwined.
Purcell and four of the directors were also members of another all-male golf club, Old Elm in a suburb of Chicago. At least six of the eleven were Roman Catholics. All of the divisions whose performance he praised were part of Institutional Securities. Discover had just had a tremendous boost when the U. Among the guests was the nearly-ninety-year-old David Rockefeller, the former chairman of Chase Bank, whose father, John D. Fred Whittemore escorted Mr. This time, the senior alumni sat wherever seats were available.
The members of the board had been invited to the service weeks earlier, and at least a few might have been expected to attend, but none of them did.
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John Mack had an appointment that day, to meet with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, presumably to talk about a business project. With his passing, we also lost a bit of our spirit. Fisher, a former managing director of J. But ambition coupled with tolerance and patience and an elegant talent for focusing attention on others is extraordinary. Ambition without arrogance and the involuntary encounter with his own limitations led Dick to a unique achievement: Dick returned to the public sphere the gift of his life more fully than anyone I have ever known.
I was a mess. Don Kempf walked into the church and I thought, He has no right to be here. It was awesome to behold.
Fisher found a way to play the game, despite his physical limitations, and Scott moved out from behind the podium to demonstrate his technique. Scott told the congregation about the night Fisher died, when a group of friends and colleagues were together at a Christmas party. I suddenly realized that even in death, Dick was doing what he always did. This stuff was percolating. After that, a lot of people were talking.
Who can I call? In fact, a mutiny was already brewing, but the gathering to honor Fisher hardened the resolve of the Group of Eight that would soon coalesce. Those who gathered for a last salute to Fisher mourned more than the loss of one much-loved man. It was then that the three retired executives resolved that the eagles would gather again. F pa rt t wo The Battle Is Joined Nine the letter organ Stanley retail branch managers from all over the United States came together for their annual meeting every winter, and in it was held on February 1 and 2, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Wearing a light-colored sport jacket and a tattersall shirt, with his left hand casually in his jacket pocket, using his right hand to gesture, palm up and thumb out, he paced back and forth on the stage, taking three steps one way, facing forward, then turning and pacing three steps in the other direction, speaking extemporaneously, rather than from notes, as he usually did. The branch managers were not making more money than he was; they did not act as though they thought they were smarter than he was; and they treated him with deference.
They were a receptive audience, but not an enthusiastic one. A year for the stockholder. Beard told Gilbert what he was hearing about performance and morale from senior members of the Equities team with whom he had worked, some of whom he had trained. And when Beard attended a retirement dinner for Robert Metzler, who succeeded him as Head of Equities, he could tell that none of the active executives were getting organized to force a change.
It had become clear to them, although probably not to Purcell, that an internal rebellion was unlikely, and that talented executives would leave, rather than challenging Purcell. Institutional investors were unlikely to interfere, except to vote on a proxy. Large shareholders and hedge fund managers like Scott Sipprelle were more independent and had loud voices, but Sipprelle had spoken up and been treated dismissively.
The analysts were idling in neutral; Purcell had assured Richard Bove that he was working on the problem areas, and Bove now recommended the Morgan Stanley stock, saying it was undervalued. Other analysts continued to be guardedly optimistic. An acquisition could give Purcell a way out that would leave him covered in glory, and even richer. The members of the Group of Eight were well positioned to mount a challenge, even one with an improbable outcome. They could live with all of that.
The biggest danger they faced was that Morgan Stanley would sue them and tie them up in years of litigation. Lehman Brothers was adrift in the s, and now it was back as one of the top competitors on the Street. The message was simple. She had been his secretary at Morgan Stanley from to , and she worked for Dick Fisher after that. How desperate people were. Would you be willing to quit? If we had enough people. Fogg, who had run Harvard Business School recruiting for Morgan Stanley, was getting calls from people he had hired and who had worked for him.
Perella and Meguid and the department heads were doing their best to run their business and deal with their clients, and they were not only getting no support from the top, they were actually having to keep the guy out of the way and not get him involved in their business.
Just plain not effective. Everyone called him, and he was disgusted by the stories he was hearing about senior Morgan Stanley people being hired away, or looking for jobs elsewhere.
Most of the members of the group were hawks, but others were doves or diplomats. Gilbert had resigned from most of the corporate and charitable boards on which he served and was leading a highly satisfactory life. It was inconceivable that he was interested in personal gain. In that sense, he was a hawk. Bob Scott was the member of the Group of Eight who had the most personal reason to want to eject Purcell, which put him in a delicate position.
An Oriental rug, a black leather couch, and windowsills crowded with family photographs were the backdrop to the focal point of the room: Scott was a hawk. His great-grandfather James J. Morgan were the winners in the famous railroad market play when E. They took his calls and the majors met with him and other members of the Eight.
As threats against the Eight were lobbed out of Morgan Stanley, many senior employees worried that their phones might be tapped even though no one had evidence to support their concern. It would cost a lot of money, legal exposure, and it could get very nasty. Debs was a Princeton Ph. He was big and bushy-browed, straightforward and elegant, with an unexpected, if mild, Brooklyn accent—his father, who was a Lebanese immigrant, lost his small business during the Depression and moved his family from Boston to Brooklyn to start over.
He was chairman of the American University in Beirut before, during, and after the revolution, an experience that called for patience, diplomacy, and the long view. His widespread outside connections led him to one of the principal roles he would play in Nearly all of them were interested, and about half a dozen said the Eight could count on them to run, if necessary. One of his important roles was quietly to keep senior regulators apprised of what was going on.