Morgan Stanley rainmaker Rob Kindler is leaving to affix elite legislation agency Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison after 17 years with the Wall Road funding financial institution the place he suggested on among the largest-ever company takeovers.
Paul Weiss mentioned Kindler was becoming a member of as a accomplice and would chair its mergers and acquisitions follow. He was most just lately vice-chair at Morgan Stanley and had been the financial institution’s world head of M&A.
“Rob is broadly recognised as probably the most influential and revered M&A practitioners on the planet,” Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp mentioned in a press release on Tuesday.
Kindler mentioned he was excited to be a part of what he described as “the premier franchise for M&A and activism defence”.
“I used to be lucky to be part of Morgan Stanley for the previous 17 years as its visionary management remodeled it into the main funding financial institution that it’s at the moment,” he mentioned.
Kindler began his profession at white-shoe legislation agency Cravath, Swaine & Moore earlier than becoming a member of JPMorgan Chase in 2000 as world head of M&A. He moved to Morgan Stanley six years later.
Probably the most pivotal offers he labored on at Morgan Stanley was promoting a minority stake in itself to Japanese lender Mitsubishi UFJ Group (MUFG) in 2008. The $9bn funding helped restore investor confidence in Morgan Stanley on the top of the monetary disaster.
Kindler turned a part of Wall Road folklore when he was despatched to gather a $9bn examine in individual from MUFG as a result of financial institution holidays in Japan and the US.
John Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chief govt on the time, described in his latest memoir how Kindler turned up “sporting his khakis and sandals from Cape Cod”, the place he had been over the weekend, after which despatched his boss an electronic mail saying “We Have the Verify!!!!!!” and “It’s Closed!!!!!!!!”.
Kindler has suggested on dozens of different main offers, together with Time Warner in its $85.4bn acquisition by AT&T, Dow Chemical’s $130bn merger with DuPont and Bristol Myers Squibb on its $90bn acquisition of Celgene.
Just lately, he labored on Morgan Stanley’s acquisitions of ETrade and Eaton Vance, two offers which have been central to its progress in asset and wealth administration.
