Job Wrap: Purcell Throws in the Morgan Stanley Towel

Can Morgan Stanley survive the outflow of top talent, which will now include chief executive Philip J. Purcell? Last week the bank hit back at recent senior level defections with seven new executive director hires for its North American institutional equity division last week.

The new hires were David Grimes from JP Morgan; Matthew Martin from Bank of America; Kevin Dunn from Deutsche Bank; Pavel Golovinskiy from Goldman Sachs; James Crouch from Citigroup; and Michael Stern and Richard Ziegenbalg from UBS.

At the same time, however, Morgan Stanley lost David Topper, its managing director of capital markets. Topper is heading to JP Morgan as co-head of US equity capital markets. Morgan Stanley also lost three MDs and six others from its sales and trading desk.

Deutsche Bank hired four people from Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) for a new monetization services desk within its U.S equity capital markets team: Neal Kearns joins as managing director and head of the desk and Peter Cahill, Matt Chellgren and John Sullivan join as vice presidents.

CSFB hired Gary Balter from UBS as a senior analyst and managing director covering the retail hardlines sector.

Elsewhere in equities, Piper Jaffray & Co. hired Troy Jensen from ThinkEquity Partners as a principle and senior research analyst covering the data and communications networking sector, based in the Minneapolis office.

Investment Banking: Hiring at Piper Jaffray, BNP Paribas and RBC

Piper Jaffray also hired David Parker from Thomas Weisel Partners as head of technology M&A based in Menlo Park.

BNP Paribas appointed Bernard Digeon as a managing director and head of the Western region, based in San Francisco. Digeon was previously based at BNP Paribas in Sydney where he was head of corporate coverage for Australia and New Zealand.

RBC Capital Markets hired Marc Daniel from Bear Stearns & Co. as a senior managing director in its M&A group.

Fixed Income: European Banks Hiring

French and German banks were hiring in fixed income last week.

BNP Paribas hired Michael Rurik Halaby from ABN Amro as a managing director and head of the financial institutions group within its debt capital markets division.

Deutsche Bank Securities hired Ian Burdette from Goldman Sachs as a director responsible for callable agency trading syndication in its rates group within the global markets division.

SG Corporate & Investment Banking hired David Stern from JP Morgan as head of securitization syndicate Americas.

Asset Management: FrontPoint Partners Hires COO from CSFB

FrontPoint Partners, a hedge fund with $5.4 billion under management, hired Joanne Pace from Credit Suisse First Boston as its first chief operating officer. Pace was a member of CSFB's executive board and global head of human resources.

ING Investment Management hired Paul Zemsky from JP Morgan Investment Management as head of derivative strategies.

Schroders, the UK fund manager, hired Steve Johnson from Marathon Asset Management to head distribution at its North America institutional business.

Private Equity: Wachovia Hires Weiss

Wachovia hired Jonathan Weiss from JP Morgan Chase as managing director and head of its financial sponsors group.

JP Morgan Brings in the Feds

JP Morgan Chase hired Naomi Gendler Camper, the banking and tax aide of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD), as co-head of federal government relations.