Morgan Stanley's London ECM bankers like moving for bigger jobs elsewhere

If you're an executive director in Morgan Stanley's equity capital markets (ECM) business in London, an auspicious future awaits you. Just maybe not at Morgan Stanley.

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As Financial News reported yesterday, UBS poached Marco Guarino from Morgan Stanley and made him its head of equity syndicate for EMEA. Guarino is replacing Clara Comellini who was promoted to run UBS's EMEA syndicate team in 2023 and whose fate is now leading strategic ECM initiation for the Swiss bank.

Sources at Morgan Stanley suggest that Guarino's going is part of a pattern on the bank's equity syndicate desk. People allegedly join, reach executive director, and leave for want of opportunities to progress.  

Guarino fits this mould. He joined the bank in 2010 after graduating from Bocconi and stayed until he got the call from UBS. He didn't make managing director in the last promotion round, probably because Morgan Stanley already has an MD and head of equity syndicate in the form of Jamie Manson-Bahr, who's been there for 18 years.

Guarino is one such guy, but London colleagues say there are more. James Cresswell, another executive director on Morgan Stanley's equity syndicate desk, moved to the US with the bank in July 2024, allegedly also in search of a better future. Mark Maislish, a former executive director on the London desk, moved to Goldman Sachs to become an MD in 2020 (before leaving again for Citadel in 2024 and then leaving Citadel for a gaming company where he remains). 

Morgan Stanley declined to comment for this article. Executive directors complaining that promotion opportunities are throttled by incumbent MDs is nothing new. Nor are executive directors who move internally to other geographical markets. Morgan Stanley's equity syndicate professionals say they have it worse, though: "It's stagnant. They lose great people because they don't find bigger roles for people who've been around a long time," complains one.

There were few MD promotions in Morgan Stanley's ECM team this year. Insiders point to one woman, Emma Whitehouse, the head of UK ECM, who became MD in January.

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