John Mack steps down as Morgan Stanley chief

Morgan Stanley's CEO John Mack, one of the last major survivors of the epic Wall Street collapse of 2008, is stepping down early next year -- and straight into the dustbin of history along with other, perhaps more tarnished, casualties of the financial meltdown. Although Morgan Stanley (MS) survived a calamity that claimed Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, Mack's firm could not escape the chaos caused by the financial crisis, its shares plunging along with those of the other Wall Street banks.

Mack's departure -- after a tenure during which he navigated Morgan Stanley through a wave of financial shocks that claimed several of the largest financial institutions in the country -- is another marker along the path of the greatest transformation on Wall Street in decades. Mack, a 64-year-old longtime power broker, was among an elite echelon of top executives who ruled Wall Street and kept New York City the center of the financial universe -- until everything fell apart last year.