Morgan Stanley is the latest bank in Europe to make a push into the world of advising distressed companies by hiring Ben Babcock, Merrill Lynch’s head of restructuring in Europe, said people familiar with the situation. Babcock is expected to join the bank in late summer to head a European restructuring effort. Morgan Stanley has a restructuring group in the US headed by Blake O’Dowd, but does not currently have a parallel group in Europe. The bank last year recruited Soren Reynertson, UBS head of European restructuring, to work in its leverage finance group, but he left the bank earlier this year.
