Reports: Morgan Stanley Hires Senior Barclays Banker Brad Whitman

(RTTNews) - Investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) has hired Brad Whitman, a senior banker at Barclays plc (BCS, BARC.L), as a vice chairman in its financial institutions group, according to media reports on Tuesday.

At Barclays, Whitman served as the head of mergers for financial institutions, after having served as a senior telecommunications banker. Whitman joined Barclays through the company's acquisition of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s American banking operations out of bankruptcy in 2008.

Lehman veterans who have already left Barclays include Hugh "Skip" McGee, the head of Barclays' American banking operations; Ros Stephenson, the global chairman of its investment bank; Paul Parker, the global head of mergers and acquisitions; and Stuart Francis, the chairman of the global technology group.

McGee is the most recent of more than a dozen senior executives to leave Barclays over the past two years, most of them from the investment-banking division. McGee, who joined Barclays when it acquired Lehman Brothers' U.S. operations in 2008, stepped down without a new job lined up.

Swiss banking giant UBS AG (UBS) said in early May that it appointed Ros Stephenson as Global Chairman of Corporate Client Solutions or CCS and the Head of CCS Americas. Stephenson will join as a Group Managing Director and report to Andrea Orcel, CEO of UBS Investment Bank.

Barclays said in early May that it plans to cut about 7,000 jobs at its investment bank as part of its efforts to reduce costs and achieve higher returns as well as growth. The company plans to create Barclays Non-Core and will exit or run down assets consisting of about 115 billion pounds, which do not fit the strategic objectives or returns criteria under its strategy review.

On Monday, Barclays said it has appointed Tom Vandever as managing director and head of financial institutions M&A for the Americas. Vandever has worked for more than 14 years at Goldman Sachs, where he served most recently as managing director in the company's financial institutions group.

MS closed Tuesday's trading at $30.33 on a volume of 7.96 million shares.