Two equity bankers lose their Morgan Stanley broker licenses – U.S. regulator

By Saeed Azhar and Chris Prentice

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Two Morgan Stanley equity syndicate bankers, Pawan Passi and Charles Leisure, are no longer listed as registered brokers at the Wall Street firm, according to industry regulator FINRA’s website.

Passi, a managing director at the bank, was no longer registered as a broker with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) as of Dec. 16. His FINRA profile includes a disclosure about a pending customer dispute that alleges “misrepresentation with respect to block trading” in 2021.

The broker registration for Leisure, an executive director, also ended Dec. 16, his FINRA profile showed.

Arnaud Blanchard became the head of the equity syndicate desk in New York earlier this year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He succeeded Passi.

Bloomberg earlier reported that the two had left the firm, adding that Passi had been placed on leave last year, followed by Leisure this year.

Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

Emails to Passi’s and Leisure’s work addresses said they are out of the office and will not be reviewing incoming email communications. The emails asked senders to contact others on the syndicate desk for assistance. Passi could not be reached by phone. Leisure did not respond to a phone call, text message and a LinkedIn message seeking comment.

Morgan Stanley in February disclosed that U.S. regulators and prosecutors were probing various aspects of the investment bank’s block trading business. It did not specify which team or teams were being investigated.

Broker-dealers frequently buy and sell blocks of shares, either on behalf of clients or as part of a hedging strategy, which are large enough to move a company’s share price.

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar and Chris Prentice; Editing by Lananh Nguyen, Megan Davies and Edwina Gibbs)