Friday will be William Ennis' final day as CEO of Evergreen Investments. That is because he has jumped to Morgan Stanley Investment Management where he will start in July. Ennis had been CEO of Evergreen Investments, the asset management arm of Wachovia, since 1994. At Morgan Stanley Investment Managers he will lead sales, distribution and operations.

Evergreen will not replace Ennis, confirmed a spokesperson. Instead of all of his direct reports will now report to Don McMullen, head of the Wachovia Capital Markets Group of which Evergreen is a unit.

"We have a strong team in place," said the spokesperson as explanation of why the firm is not looking. "We certainly feel that Bill made a significant contribution and we wish him well in his new role," the spokesperson added.

During that decade-long span over which Ennis ran Evergreen's asset management business, mutual fund assets managed by the firm grew to $115 billion from $3 billion, according to Financial Research Corp. A

Morgan Stanley appears to be tapping Ennis in the hope that he can find a way to reverse what have been consistent outflows since 2001, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report. Part of that effort will include building the distribution of Morgan Stanley funds through third-party channels, according to the report.

In May, the outflows from the investment management unit hit $5.4 billion, according to figure provided by executives during a conference call for analysts. The bulk of the outflows were from money market funds and equity funds managed inflows into Van Kampen funds. 

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