Capital Markets: How The Group Of Eight Ousted Purcell - Through A Ruthless Public Relations Campaign, Eight Dissidents Brought About Phil Purcell's Exit From The CEO Post At Morgan Stanley. Nick Kochan Looks At How And Why They Did It And Asks If This Se.

Banker, The, August, 2005

An extraordinary corporate governance and press campaign that could set a precedent for other shareholder actions against unpopular boards and executives brought about the removal of Morgan Stanley's former CEO Phil Purcell.

A source close to the campaign described its basis. "We are championing the shareholders. If you have an entrenched board standing behind a leader like Purcell, it's hard for shareholders to effect change. Putting letters in the paper was not the reason that Purcell had to resign. We were only mirroring shareholder and employee dissatisfaction."

The first spark

The campaign has its origins in the pathos of a memorial service for Dick Fisher, a former chairman of the bank. Those attending the service shared the view that...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.