(Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley is reshuffling the top ranks of its investment-banking business to set up for what it sees as a full-blown revival in dealmaking and borrowing markets.
The company tapped longtime capital-markets banker Mo Assomull as a new co-head of investment banking alongside Eli Gross and Simon Smith, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg News. The firm also named Evan Damast and Henrik Gobel as new leaders of the global capital markets unit.
The sprouting green shoots in dealmaking may have turned into delayed shoots but the business is positioned to ramp up fast, according to Chief Executive Officer Ted Pick. That was his message Tuesday after reporting earnings where the bank’s Wall Street operations handily beat estimates. Borrowing markets moving away from traditional commercial banking and toward the likes of private-credit firms has also spurred the changes at the bank.
“We can now expect our broader corporate finance activity to quicken, whether that is across the corporate community or sponsors or other institutions,” Pick said on the earnings call. “I think we’re in the early stages of a multi-year investment banking-led cycle.”
A representative for Morgan Stanley confirmed the contents of the memo.
The rapid growth and transformation of the credit and private-equity markets are critical to Morgan Stanley’s growth path and led to another key change in its executive lineup, Dan Simkowitz, co-president at the New York-based firm, said in the memo. Dan Toscano, the well-known leveraged-finance head at Morgan Stanley, was also moved into a new role as chairman of credit markets and financial sponsors.
Assomull has been with Morgan Stanley for almost 30 years, having joined the firm in 1996 in Hong Kong. He had also previously been one of chief operating officers of the unit that encompasses its trading and banking business.
Damast was most recently global head of fixed income and equity syndicate while Gobel was most recently head of global capital markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. They will report to the co-heads of investment banking.
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