Google hires Morgan Stanley's Porat as CFO

(Reuters) - Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat is leaving the bank to become Google Inc's CFO, the latest Wall Street executive to move to Silicon Valley, where fortunes can be built fast but businesses can also become irrelevant overnight.

Porat, a California native, joined Morgan Stanley in 1987, and led Morgan Stanley's investment banking business for tech companies during the Internet boom. She worked with companies including Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc.

Morgan Stanley and Google on Tuesday announced the move by Porat, which leaves Greg Fleming, 52, the bank's head of wealth management, and Colm Kelleher, 57, head of trading, as potential successors to CEO James Gorman.

Gorman, 56, has been heading the bank for about five years and he is not expected to leave anytime soon.

In a blog post, Google said Porat will join the company on May 26. (http://bit.ly/1EN0JbF) She will be at Morgan Stanley until the end of April, Gorman said in a memo to employees.

During the financial crisis, Porat led the Morgan Stanley teams advising the U.S. Treasury on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank on American International Group Inc.

She was widely reported to have been a candidate to be the Treasury deputy secretary, but she said she was not interested.

Porat, 57, will replace Patrick Pichette, who said on March 10 that he planned to retire.

Jonathan Pruzan, co-head of Morgan Stanley's global financial institutions group in investment banking, will become CFO after Porat leaves on April 30.

Pruzan, 46, joined Morgan Stanley in 1994 and he has been working with its financial institution clients.

"He understands the current regulatory environment, having shepherded clients through the Fed's stress test ..." Gorman said in a memo to staff.

Total compensation to Google's departing CFO was twice as much as Porat's for the three years through 2013 - $62.2 million vs $29.6 million, according to public filings by the two companies. Google has not disclosed how much it expects to pay Porat.

Google shares rose 1.8 percent in early trading, while Morgan Stanley shares slipped 0.7 percent.

(Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri and Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey and Grant McCool)