Amidst an outflow of personnel at Morgan Stanley, the group has made a key appointment, tapping Sam Kellie-Smith as the lender’s new global fixed-income head as the bank reshapes its bond trading unit, according to a recent Reuters report.
Just last week, Morgan Stanley parted ways with a couple of senior FX executives, including Guy Hopkins and Giovanni Pillitteri. Mr. Hopkins was the Head of FX Sales for the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, having joined from Bloomberg over seven years before, while Mr. Pillitteri had served as Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of FX.
Mr. Kellie-Smith however will step into the void at Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income unit, where he will replace a pair of co-heads in Robert Rooney and Michael Heaney. In addition, he is also slated to assume responsibility of the lender’s commodities division.
Back in December, Morgan Stanley slashed hundreds of jobs from its debt and currencies division across both New York and London. The moves were propagated by waning revenues and profitability, which in some regions saw cuts in up to 25% of its trading workforce as regulatory actions have stifled profits.
Mr. Kellie-Smith originally joined Morgan Stanley back in 1997 and has since run its Equities derivatives trading in London and Asia equity trading in Hong Kong. The past seven years of his tenure has been relegated to working as its Global Head of Equity Trading for the last seven years.
