Ennis quits post after 14 months at Morgan Stanley

NEW YORK — William M. Ennis, president of global services at Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc. for just 14 months, resigned effective Sept. 30.

Mitch Merin, president and chief operating officer and Mr. Ennis' boss, would not say how much notice Mr. Ennis gave him. Mr. Merin also said he has no immediate plans to replace Mr. Ennis; executives reporting to Mr. Ennis now will report to Mr. Merin.

Mr. Merin said Mr. Ennis resigned for personal reasons; he wouldn't elaborate.

Efforts to reach Mr. Ennis were unsuccessful.

A source who has worked closely with Mr. Ennis and preferred to remain anonymous said Mr. Ennis' professional responsibilities weighed heavily on his family life. "I think it's a situation where he was always on the road and he decided to reprioritize his perspective on family, and they'll be put first," the source said.

Mr. Ennis reportedly had never moved from North Carolina. He was lured to MSIM from his post as president and chief executive officer of Evergreen Investments. Boston-based Evergreen is a unit of Wachovia Bank, Charlotte, N.C.

At Morgan Stanley, spokesman Chad Peterson said Mr. Ennis' job was to find and recruit people to fill positions in product services, sales and marketing for both the institutional and retail divisions.

Mr. Merin said Mr. Ennis helped bring to life his vision to change the money management firm into a leaner and more profitable company. MSIM had $394 billion under management as of Aug. 31.

"Bill took people and put them in the right boxes, and he really helped get the firm organized by getting the team in place," Mr. Merin said in an interview. "I'm confident about having his people directly report to me now."

Mr. Merin recalled the summer of 2003, when he and Mr. Ennis spent hours hashing out a master plan that would prop up MSIM's product performance and expand distribution capabilities.

Mr. Merin acknowledged that sharing his vision of transforming MSIM into top quartile performer across all investment disciplines and selling them across multiple distribution channels continues to be a tough task to accomplish. "He heard it, accepted it and thought we were heading in the right direction," he said.

He also acknowledged the problems in bringing in a high-level executive like Mr. Ennis: "Take a guy who was CEO of his own firm: How do you structure a role for this guy internally?"

One industry observer believed Mr. Ennis could have grown tired of executing someone else's plan without any indications that he would don his boss' title and office in the future.

Clients seem unconcerned by the sudden resignation.

Alan Szewczyk, deputy director of investments for the $5.3 billion Cook County Employees' Annuity & Benefit Fund, Chicago, said: "Change happens all the time in this industry, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad. For us, we strictly look at the (performance) numbers." Morgan Stanley manages a $247 million balanced portfolio for the fund.

John Chartier, spokesman for the $115 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany, said fund executives don't think Mr. Ennis' departure will affect performance of the $3 billion international equity portfolio Morgan Stanley handles for the state fund. The system has no plans to meet with Morgan Stanley executives because Mr. Ennis didn't directly handle its assets.

James Mitchell, who follows Morgan Stanley for Buckingham Research Associates, Cookham, England, thought Mr. Ennis had fulfilled his responsibilities to turn around the money management side of business. Still, he added: "Rising tides lift all boats. In the age of growth you need good fund performance; Bill could have only impacted that indirectly through choosing talented staff to make it happen."

Richard Bove, who follows Morgan Stanley for Punk, Ziegal & Co., New York, agreed. He said only external factors — changes in short-term interest rates, consumer income, oils prices — could affect the profitability of the mammoth money manager. "When Morgan Stanley loses an individual (not directly handling clients' money) it has virtually no impact on company's overall profits."