Rothschild Private Banking & Trust has appointed a pair of veterans of Morgan Stanley’s Private Wealth Management division as managing directors in its UK private banking business, WealthBriefing can exclusively reveal.

Both Helen Watson and Mark Kary spent 19 years with Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, although only the former will join Rothschild directly from the Wall Street bank.

Ms Watson’s departure from Morgan Stanley, where she had been a managing director since 2005, was reported by this publication yesterday, at which point details of her next move were unknown.

Mr Kary, meanwhile, joins Rothschild from Polar Capital Holdings, where he has been chief executive since 2005.

During his tenure with Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Mr Kary was instrumental in developing the bank’s discretionary management capabilities. He later went on to become head of UK Private Wealth Management, before ultimately being appointed to lead the Northern European wealth management business, covering the UK, German-speaking Europe, Benelux and Scandinavia.

Also joining Rothschild is James Morrell, who himself has spent seven years at Morgan Stanley working with Ms Watson.

Mr Kary is joining Rothschild with immediate effect, to be followed by Ms Watson and Mr Morrell in May and April respectively. Based in London, the team will report to Gary Powell, head of Rothschild’s UK private banking business.

Rothschild has been aggressively recruiting in recent times and has doubled its number of client-facing staff over the last two years. One recent appointee is Lucia Würmli who was recruited from Deutsche Bank (Switzerland) to take up the role of deputy head of portfolio management.