Perella Grabs Another Morgan Banker

Despite

Morgan Stanley's

(MS) - Get Report

rebuilding theme in its first-quarter earnings, Joseph Perella continues to grab hires away from the firm.

His latest pickup is Dietrich Becker, a veteran in industrial mergers and acquisitions. Perella confirmed Becker's departure on Wednesday, and said he will join the new investment firm as a partner.

Becker, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, has been at the firm since 1998 and has worked on a number of large transactions, including the sale of Mannesmann to

Vodafone

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and the proposed acquisition of

BOC Group

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by Linde AG.

Becker has also worked with

Bayer

and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Prior to working at Morgan Stanley, Becker headed

Deutsche Bank's

(DB) - Get Report

industrial investment banking, and he previously worked at

Merrill Lynch's

(MER)

European M&A practice.

Late last year, Perella left Morgan Stanley in a highly publicized management shake-up and announced the formation of a new investment firm, which hasn't yet been named. Since his departure, Morgan Stanley bankers have continued to migrate to his company.

Among them are Bernard Gault, who previously worked in the merchant-bank and financial-advisory businesses, and Jon Anda, who was co-head of global capital markets. Perella also hired Philip Yates, who was co-head of Merrill's M&A group.

The departure of Perella and the other bankers has forced Morgan Stanley to reshuffle some executives in its investment-banking practice. Morgan has aggressively worked to fill those gaps, hiring a set of high-powered investment bankers from

Citigroup's

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leveraged-finance business.