Morgan Stanley M&A chief to jump back to big law

Dive Brief:

Rob Kindler, Morgan Stanley’s global chair of mergers and acquisitions, is leaving the bank after a 17-year run to join Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison as a partner and chair of the law firm’s M&A practice.
His departure comes as M&A activity has slumped 44% so far this year, according to Bloomberg, and as Morgan Stanley looks to shed another 3,000 jobs by the end of this month. It cut 1,600 positions in December.
Kindler is not the first M&A chief at a top-six U.S. bank to step aside this year. Mark Shafir, Citi’s co-head of global mergers and acquisitions, announced in April he was leaving that bank. Shafir later joined Consello Group, an advisory firm.

Dive Insight:

Kindler played crucial roles in some of Morgan Stanley’s top deals over nearly two decades, including the bank’s own acquisitions of E*Trade and Eaton Vance in 2020 and the sale of a minority stake in Morgan Stanley to Mitsubishi UFJ Group in 2008. The latter $9 billion transaction helped boost investor confidence in Morgan Stanley amid a burgeoning financial crisis. And MUFG made a point of holding onto that stake even as it downsized its presence in U.S. banking.

Externally, Kindler advised on Time Warner’s $85 billion sale to AT&T, Dow Chemical’s $130 billion merger with DuPont, and Viacom’s $40 billion tie-up with CBS.

Kindler’s move to Paul Weiss would reunite him with his former protege, Scott Barshay, who worked with him at the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore in the late 1990s. Barshay jumped from Cravath to Paul Weiss in 2016 and became the law firm’s corporate-department chair.

Barshay, it appears, helped to persuade Kindler to return to big law, according to The Wall Street Journal. Kindler, 69, indicated he had no interest in retiring and will begin at Paul Weiss after Labor Day after taking the summer off, the publication reported.

“I was fortunate to be a part of Morgan Stanley for the past 17 years as its visionary leadership transformed it into the leading investment bank that it is today,” Kindler said in a Paul Weiss press release Tuesday.

Kindler had earlier said he planned to stay at Morgan Stanley through CEO James Gorman’s tenure, according to the Journal. Gorman said last month that he would step down within the next year.

Kindler jumped to banking in 2000 after 20 years at Cravath. He served as a managing director at JPMorgan Chase (and its predecessor, Chase Manhattan) for six years before moving to Morgan Stanley.

Kindler’s dedication to closing the MUFG deal was canonized in a recent memoir by former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who recounted that Kindler collected the $9 billion check in person from the Japanese lender because of bank holidays in Japan and the U.S.

Kindler allegedly arrived at the office “wearing his khakis and sandals from Cape Cod,” where he had spent the previous weekend, and sent Mack emails that read “We Have the Check!!!!!!” and “It’s Closed!!!!!!!!,” according to the Financial Times.

“Rob is widely recognized as one of the most influential and respected M&A practitioners in the world,” Paul Weiss Chair Brad Karp said in Tuesday’s statement. “We are thrilled to welcome him to our firm.”