….Although Gorman’s wealth management target was the most aggressive cut to pay ratios in Morgan Stanley’s three business units, the 55 percent ratio is still much higher than the 40 percent or less he outlined for institutional securities and investment management.
“Bank executives say, it’s a high-cost, high-aggravation business and why can’t we bring it under control?” said Alan Johnson, a Wall Street pay consultant, referring to the challenge of managing the personalities and pay packages of thousands of individual advisers. “They think about it every day – even just getting another 1 percent on billions of dollars’ of revenue is a lot of money.”….
Reuters / July 1, 2014