2006-02-06 10:12 (New York)

By Christine Harper

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley's head of cash-equity sales and trading in continental Europe, Nicolas Wirz, has left the firm after 11 years to join the investment-management unit of two-year-old Carlton Financial Group.

Wirz, 46, will work alongside Olivier Haguenauer, a former Morgan Stanley executive who joined Carlton in August, the London-based group said in an e-mailed statement today.

Haguenauer was more recently at Exane BNP Paribas, where he was a partner. Morgan Stanley spokesman Sebastian Howell confirmed that Wirz, a managing director based in Paris, left the firm last week. A successor has not yet been named.

Morgan Stanley, the third-biggest U.S. securities firm by market value, has lost senior bankers, including European mergers head Paulo Pereira and China chief Jonathan Zhu, since the start of the year. Chief Executive Officer John Mack, in an effort to trim costs and lift the company's stock, told about 25 managing directors in November that they would be fired.

Carlton Financial Group, founded in 2004 by Andrew Taee and George Magan, has two divisions: the Carlton Capital Partners LLP investment-management unit and an advisory division called Carlton Corporate Finance Ltd. Carlton Capital Partners started its first fund, called Ribot, at the end of 2005.

Carlton Financial Group also said today that it named Francis Mackay, chairman of Compass Group Plc and Kingfisher Plc, as a non-executive vice chairman.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Christine Harper in London (44)(20)7330-7982 or charper@bloomberg.net