Abbas reports to Alexander Classen, head of Morgan Stanley PWM in the same region. As it happens, the position Abbas now fills is the one for which Classen left Goldman Sachs to take early in 2006.

Until last year Abbas was head of Merrill's private-client business in the same region. He left after Robert McCann, head of Merrill's private-client division, gave that job to Eva Castillo.

Villalba

In 2004, former Merrill wealth manager Stephanie Villalba sued the company for sexual discrimination. U.K. courts twice found that Villalba failed to prove she'd been demeaned and ill-paid because of her gender in a complaint that included the allegation that Abbas, her boss at the time, made an unfavorable comparison between her work ethic and that of his housemaid, and that he made her serve him and other executives drinks on a flight .

For a while when he was at Merrill, Abbas reported to Classen's boss James Gorman, who left Merrill in 2005 and joined Morgan Stanley as head of its global private-client business early in 2006.

Morgan Stanley is in a bit of hiring frenzy. Classen has hired about two dozen advisors in the past 12 months or so, including six from Citigroup's Smith Barney. He recently said he plans to hire another 20 or so advisors by the end of the first quarter of 2008.

In the U.S., Morgan Stanley recently launched a multifamily office group under former U.S. Trust executive Robert Stolar. -FWR

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