Discover something new

John Mack’s decision to commit Morgan Stanley to retaining its Discover credit card unit looks odd. He is a new chief executive with a clear mandate to take hard action to turn the firm around. There are few synergies between credit cards and the core investment banking business. Nor is Discover a fast-growing business. Nor are credit cards a fast-growing industry. One answer is that the move is a way of Mack showing who’s boss. After all, it was his predecessor Philip Purcell who announced the...