Morgan Stanley is moving roughly half of its institutional securities traders to its disaster recovery site as Wall Street rushes to prep for the coronavirus spread
- As the coronavirus has spread in recent days, Morgan Stanley is shifting around half of its institutional securities traders to its disaster recovery site in Westchester County in New York, according to a person familiar with the situation.
- The bank's plans come days after it halted employees' non-essential international travel amid the outbreak.
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Morgan Stanley is shifting around half of its institutional securities traders to its disaster recovery site in Westchester, New York as the coronavirus has spread, according to communications seen by Business Insider.
The bank's plans for its trading desk come days after the firm halted all employees' non-essential travel outside the US and said additional changes may be made. A company spokesperson declined to comment.
On Sunday, Morgan Stanley said in a memo to all staff that only business-critical travel outside the US would be permitted, and must be pre-approved by a division head. The firm had some 60,400 global employees as of Dec. 31.
Morgan Stanley had previously asked people attending its technology, media, and telecommunications conference in San Francisco this week to self-report whether they may have been exposed to the coronavirus, Reuters first reported.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday morning that there were two new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, Covid-19. One new patient is a man in his 40s, de Blasio said, and the other is a woman in her 80s.
That brings the total number of confirmed cases in New York state to 13, multiple news outlets including NBC News and the New York Times reported on Thursday.
Westchester County has also reported cases of the coronavirus. On Wednesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed five new cases of the virus there.
Morgan Stanley, now headquartered in midtown Manhattan, created the disaster recovery site in the Westchester County suburb of Purchase, which is just north of New York City, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The firm, which has sales and trading, investment banking, and wealth management operations, was housed in the World Trade Center.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Morgan Stanley was preparing a backup site for staffers in Westchester.
Many financial services firms have taken similar precautions as the coronavirus has spread across different countries, including in the US. JPMorgan has begun shifting sales and trading staff in New York and London to different offices, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a company memo.
On Wednesday, UBS told employees in a memo that it was imposing a global restriction on international travel "that is not absolutely business critical," according to a memo reviewed by Business Insider.
The Swiss bank also said that all existing international travel bookings would also require pre-approval, and that if an employee or someone in the employee's household had traveled to, from, or through China, South Korea, Italy, or Iran, they are not permitted to enter their office for two weeks following their return.
