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It’s Colm Kelleher’s world at Morgan Stanley.
The long-term British banking veteran has displaced rival Paul Taubman to become sole head of Morgan Stanley’s investment bank.
A 30-year veteran, Taubman, 51, is expected to retire from the firm at year’s end, according to a bank statement yesterday.
“Paul is an outstanding banker and business leader who has made exceptional contributions both to Morgan Stanley and to our investment banking,” CEO James Gorman said in the statement.
Taubman’s exit comes on the heels of reports of simmering tension between the two co-heads — resulting from their distinctly different management styles.
They shared leadership of the unit for three years.
Gorman tapped Kelleher to run the business alone because of the perception that he would score more business in investment banking than Taubman, according to Bloomberg.
Kelleher is considered a potential No. 2 to Gorman, along with execs like Greg Fleming, head of Morgan Stanley’s asset management unit, and CFO Ruth Porat.
Morgan Stanley’s trading operation, overseen by Kelleher, has been a particular bugaboo for the firm, which has made massive missteps during and after the financial meltdown.
In its most recent quarter — excluding a funky $2.3 billion accounting charge — bond-trading revenue jumped 72 percent from the second quarter when the clients hesitated to do business with the firm due to fear of a ratings downgrade.
Gorman’s focus, however, has been primarily on growing the bank’s brokerage business run by Fleming, in order to stabilize the firm’s performance from quarter to quarter.
Both Fleming and Taubman appear to be frontrunners to potentially be named president of the entire of the bank — a title that Gorman has not yet assigned.
Taubman’s future plans could not be learned.