Morgan Stanley: Pick of the bunch will garner no low-hanging fruit

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":12.36,"text":"US banks are hardly providing best-in-class examples of succession planning. "},{"start":16.939,"text":"Wells Fargo cycled through three chief executives in three years. "},{"start":20.582,"text":"Goldman Sachs has floundered under David Solomon. "},{"start":23.474,"text":"Over at Citigroup, Jane Fraser is struggling to convince sceptics. "}],[{"start":28.419999999999998,"text":"Against this backdrop, news that Morgan Stanley has appointed Ted Pick as its new chief executive is refreshing for its lack of boardroom drama. "}],[{"start":36.62,"text":"Pick, a 33-year Morgan Stanley veteran who runs investment banking and trading, has those most cliched of appendages, a safe pair of hands. "},{"start":45.174,"text":"He is expected to press on with the strategy of outgoing boss James Gorman at the $120bn investment banking and asset management group. "},{"start":52.94199999999999,"text":"This has focused on growth in wealth and asset management. "}],[{"start":56.48,"text":"Under Gorman’s 13-year tenure, revenue has more than doubled to nearly $54bn last year. "},{"start":62.583999999999996,"text":"Net income has grown more than 700 per cent to $11bn. "},{"start":66.702,"text":"Return on average tangible common equity, which came in at 15.3 per cent last year, was second only to JPMorgan among the big Wall Street banks. "}],[{"start":75.74,"text":"Morgan Stanley’s market capitalisation has surpassed that of Goldman, its crosstown rival in investment banking and trading. "},{"start":82.64399999999999,"text":"The stock also commands a 38 per cent premium over Goldman on a price to book value basis. "}],[{"start":89.03999999999999,"text":"It will be well-nigh impossible for Pick to engineer an improvement quite as impressive. "},{"start":93.782,"text":"Gorman took over Morgan Stanley in 2010 in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis. "}],[{"start":99.27,"text":"Pick will struggle to deliver the type of outsized gains seen under his predecessor. "},{"start":103.812,"text":"The slump in dealmaking and the slowdown in growth in the wealth management business add to the challenge. "},{"start":108.75399999999999,"text":"Morgan Stanley’s long-term target — a 20 per cent return on tangible equity — will be hard to hit. "}],[{"start":115.33,"text":"The other leading contenders were wealth management head Andy Saperstein and asset management boss Dan Simkowitz. "},{"start":121.372,"text":"They say they will stay on to help their pal Pick. "},{"start":123.964,"text":"That sounds more like Sesame Street that Wall Street. "},{"start":126.844,"text":"But exceptionalism in labour relations is to be applauded, given the alternatives. "}],[{"start":131.31,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/127479-1698368767.mp3"}