• Bloomberg, Monday, March 5, 2012 10:32 AM

This is sort of a branding story if one considers that, while Morgan Stanley may have a lot of money, it is running on fumes when it comes to brand equity: One William Bryan Jennings, the firm’s bond-underwriting chief in the U.S., was charged with a hate crime in the stabbing of a New York City cab driver of Middle Eastern descent over a fare.

It doesn’t help too much that the story trumpets the fact that the driver, Mohamed Ammar, had driven the nicely pickled banker 40 miles from a New York party to his $3.4 million Darien, Conn., home. Or that the banker turned himself in after taking a vacation in Florida. Or that the bank hasn’t fired him. Evidently, the attack was precipitated by the cab driver’s audacious request that the banker pay the $205 fare. The cabbie probably could have defused the incident by asking for a collateralized debt instrument in lieu of a tip.  

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