Morgan Stanley Taps Stratford Shields to Head Public Finance

NEW YORK - Morgan Stanley on Friday announced that Stratford Shields would be its new head of public finance, about four months after former head Andrew Garvey left the firm.

The announcement was made in an internal memorandum that Phil Newcomb and Roberto Hoornweg, co-heads of Morgan Stanley's interest rates and currencies division, sent on Friday.

“Stratford's mandate is to continue to grow the footprint in our business by leveraging the resources in the department and the rest of the firm,” they said in the memo.

Shields, who was previously based in Morgan Stanley’s Chicago office, said he will work in the firm’s New York City office several days a week until he is able to relocate his family to the East Coast.

Morgan Stanley’s muni group is in the process of moving from an office in Westchester County, New York, back into the firm’s New York City offices. The whole group will be finished relocating by Monday, Shields said.

Prior to the promotion, Shields led Morgan Stanley’s Midwest regional group and oversaw the Southeast, Southwest, and Rocky Mountain regional groups from 2004 to 2007, the company said. Shields joined Morgan Stanley in 1996, after serving as a vice president at Prudential Securities.

Before he took a job in the securities industry, Shields was president of the State Controlling Board and Deputy Director of the Ohio Office of Budget and Management.

Garvey’s departure in early May came as a surprise to many in the municipal market.

At the time, Morgan Stanley was the third major municipal bond underwriting firm to reshuffle its management during roughly a year’s time.

The other two firms -- JPMorgan and UBS Securities LLC -- both had succession plans in place when the former head stepped down from the top spot. Until Shield’s appointment, Morgan Stanley had not made any succession plan public.

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