Former Morgan Stanley investment banker joins UBS

 Tuesday, UBS announced it hired a Morgan Stanley investment banker, Michael Ostow, 41, who will lead its insurance practice in North America as a managing director. That is months after the bank lost two senior insurance bankers to Greenhill & Co.

Michael Ostow will join UBS as a managing director and report to Americas co-heads of the financial institutions group, Gary Howe and Halle Benett.

Ostow used to be a co-head of the North American insurance group within Morgan Stanley's FIG practice.

As Benett stated, the insurance sector is currently undergoing enormous change, and we are seeing a significant pipeline of insurance-related transactions.

In April, Greenhill hired three bankers from UBS. Alejandro Przygoda, who headed UBS's global insurance practice, and Steven Friedman, who co-headed its insurance practice for North America, were among them.

According to the statement of Gary Howe, financial institutions continue to face unprecedented challenges in terms of economic crisis, which have led to a high volume of transactions, from capital raising to restructuring to M&A.