(Reuters) -Ken Moelis will step down as chief executive officer of his investment bank, Moelis & Co, handing over the reins to his longtime partner Navid Mahmoodzadegan.
Moelis will become executive chair, effective October 1, the bank said in a statement on Monday. Co-founder and co-president Jeff Raich will become executive vice chair.
The leadership transition marks a significant milestone for the bank, which has been led solely by Moelis since its founding in 2007.
The veteran dealmaker, with a career spanning more than 40 years, is one of the most respected names on Wall Street. He was once a banker to current U.S. President Donald Trump and played a key role as a senior executive at UBS.
Moelis & Co is among a select group of pure-play investment banks, dedicated primarily to offering advice instead of lending or trading.
Succession at firms closely tied to their founding CEOs can be tricky because of their personal influence. But Ken Moelis expects to pull off the “smoothest transition ever in the history of Wall Street”, he said in an interview to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the move earlier in the day.
“This is the right moment to elevate the next generation of leadership and create further opportunities for internal growth,” he said in the statement.
Mahmoodzadegan, the CEO-designate, is the bank’s co-founder and currently serves as its co-president. A Harvard graduate, he was an attorney before becoming an investment banker.
Between 2001 and 2007, he was the global head of media investment banking at UBS, according to his LinkedIn profile.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Anil D’silva)
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