Morgan Stanley CEO Sees Only Half His Employees Back by Year-End

Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman joined other finance-industry leaders in warning that operations won’t be fully back to normal this year.

• “We are working on a series of programs to provide a safe environment for our employees to come back,” Gorman said at the firm’s virtual shareholder meeting. “Under no circumstance will the employees be forced to come back in 2020 to their desk when they have any concern or fear over their health and safety.”
• He said he expects closer to 50% of employees back in offices by the end of the year. That figure has varied significantly across the firm’s global locations.
• While Morgan Stanley still has more than 90% of employees working from home, almost half the workers in Hong Kong are back. It’s a “very, very, very small number” in New York City, Gorman said.
• NOTE, April 16: Gorman Sees Morgan Stanley Future With ‘Much Less Real Estate’

To contact the reporter on this story:
Sridhar Natarajan in New York at snatarajan15@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net

Steve Dickson, Daniel Taub

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