Drexel Names President, Makes Executive ChangesDrexel Burnham...
Drexel Names President, Makes Executive Changes
Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., the Wall Street giant that recently settled federal securities fraud charges, has announced several senior management changes, including the appointment of a new president.
The company said Howard M. Brenner, 56, currently senior executive vice president, will succeed Joseph A. Vitanza, 65, who has held the post since 1982. Vitanza plans to retire Dec. 31 and will remain a consultant to the firm.
Brenner, a Wall Street professional for 33 years, started with Drexel in 1963 as an account executive. His responsibilities have included manager of retail sales, director of marketing and head of equity trading.
Frederick H. Joseph, Drexel’s chief executive, said the appointment of Brenner and others “will further strengthen the firm for the competitive climate Drexel anticipates for the 1990s and represent a natural extension of the broad restructuring the firm implemented in April.”
Drexel is one of the most aggressive Wall Street investment firms and helped pioneer the use of high-yield junk bonds as tools for corporate refinancings and acquisitions in the 1980s.
But its image was tarnished by an intensive government investigation that began nearly three years ago and stemmed from disclosures by now-imprisoned inside trader Ivan F. Boesky, who had business dealings with Drexel.
On April 13, Drexel and the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a settlement of an extensive fraud case stemming from the Boesky affair.
Under that agreement, Drexel pleaded guilty to six criminal charges, paid a record $650 million in fines and penalties, subjected itself to unprecedented federal scrutiny for three years and agreed to sever ties to its junk bond chief, Michael Milken.
Milken has since been indicted on racketeering and fraud charges, to which he has pleaded innocent.
Drexel also announced as part of the agreement that John Shad, the former SEC chairman instrumental in starting an investigation of the firm, had been appointed as its chairman.
In addition, Drexel began a drastic restructuring that included the sale of its retail brokerage unit and other changes that has roughly halved the firm’s worldwide staff of more than 10,000.
Other senior management changes included the appointment of Executive Vice President Burton M. Siegel, 54, as chairman of Drexel Burnham Lambert International, the firm’s subsidiary for overseas operations; Senior Vice President Arthur Kirsch, 37, as head of institutional equity sales, trading and research, and Senior Vice President Richard L. Sandor, 47, head of fixed-income trading.
