James Gorman stated Friday he plans to resign as Morgan Stanley‘s CEO within the yr, setting off a succession race atop considered one of Wall Street’s dominant companies.

The financial institution’s board has narrowed its CEO search to three “very robust” inside candidates, Gorman advised shareholders at the New York-based agency’s annual assembly.

Gorman, 64, will tackle the government chairman function “for a time period” after stepping down as CEO, he stated.

“The particular timing of the CEO transition has not been decided, however it’s the board’s and my expectation that it’ll happen in some unspecified time in the future in the subsequent 12 months,” Gorman stated.

“That is the present expectation in the absence of a serious change in the exterior setting,” he added.

Since taking up in 2010, Gorman has pulled off considered one of the extra successful transformations on Wall Street. Through a sequence of savvy acquisitions, Morgan Stanley rebounded after practically capsizing throughout the 2008 monetary disaster to turn into a wealth administration juggernaut.

The financial institution started that journey in 2009, when Morgan Stanley bought Smith Barney from Citigroup in the throes of the monetary disaster, gaining hundreds of monetary advisors. It then spent greater than $20 billion to purchase low cost brokerage E-Trade and funding supervisor Eaton Vance in 2020, including scale and heft to the financial institution’s nontrading operations.

As a consequence, Morgan Stanley has turn into an asset-gathering machine: Gorman has stated his financial institution can add roughly $1 trillion in belongings each three years, ultimately getting to $10 trillion.

“It is tough to argue that James Gorman has not been considered one of the elite CEOs in the monetary providers business, taking up the firm popping out of the” 2008 monetary disaster and sharply enhancing its returns, KBW analyst David Konrad stated in a analysis notice.

The agency’s traders have rewarded it with considered one of the high valuations amongst massive financial institution friends. That’s as a result of shareholders favor the steadier income streams generated by wealth and asset administration over the extra unstable charges from buying and selling and advisory companies.

Shares of Morgan Stanley have tripled throughout Gorman’s tenure.

Morgan Stanley’s inside CEO candidates are the males main the financial institution’s three essential businesses, in accordance to folks with information of the state of affairs.

Ted Pick and Andy Saperstein, who run the financial institution’s capital markets and wealth administration divisions respectively, have additionally been co-presidents since 2021. Dan Simkowitz runs the financial institution’s smallest division, funding administration, and was named co-head of technique in 2021.

The announcement makes official Gorman’s want to hand over the reins to one other government. Gorman has stated publicly for the previous few years that he did not plan on staying for much longer as CEO, and on Friday he joked that he would not die whereas holding the title.

Gorman has “no plans to exit like Logan Roy,” the fictional CEO from HBO’s “Succession” sequence, he advised traders.