Did Morgan Stanley’s Current Directors Win Endorsement Because of Outside Affiliations?

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace) -- Although several shareholder groups, including unions, were calling for the ouster of several its Directors, one of
the most influential shareholder advising services endorsed the continuing tenure of the current team of Directors for the global investment firm Morgan Stanley
(NYSE: MS).

The influential Institutional Shareholder Services group backed the re-elections of Morgan Stanley CEO/Chairman John J Mack as well as the other Directors who came under fire from various shareholders, according to an online Reuters article.

The Institutional Shareholder Services could have taken into account the high level of outside involvement of the Morgan Stanley Directors when making its endorsement assessment, since it serves as a good measure of whether they have the experience necessary to make sound business judgments.

NewsVisual created an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map that visually represents the Board of Directors of Morgan Stanley as well as their past and current connections to other corporations and nonprofit institutions.

The Knowledge Map depicts, for example, the numerous affiliations of Mr Mack, including his tenure as the CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston, his membership on the Board of Trustees of New York Presbyterian Hospital, and the fact that he is a graduate of Duke University.

We can also see that Morgan Stanley Director Roy Bostock is the current Chairman of Yahoo! Inc as well as a Director for Northwest Airlines Corp.

In addition, the Map shows the past and current affiliations of two other Morgan Stanley board members whom most people know as being former heavy weights in the Clinton Administration:

We see that Director Laura D Tyson, the former Chair of the White House Counsel of Economic Advisers to President Clinton, is affiliated with AT&T Inc, the Eastman Kodak Co, and the University of California at Berkeley; and similarly, we also see that Director Erskine B Bowles, the former Clinton-era White House Chief of Staff, has links with the General Motors Corp, Cousins Properties Inc, and The University of North Carolina.

Click here for a fuller and an interactive version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map.

(Note: the information contained and presented in Knowledge Maps is public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States of America).