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Lazard on Tuesday named insider Kenneth Jacobs as CEO and chairman, succeeding legendary Wall Street dealmaker Bruce Wasserstein, who died last month.
The move was widely expected and signals the investment bank is not seeking to change its focus on businesses such as merger advisory and restructuring, analysts said.
Jacobs, 51, has been with the firm for more than two decades and is an experienced dealmaker. He has worked on transactions for clients including GlaxoSmithKline and IBM, even as he has risen to increasingly senior posts.
"The key to Lazard is you have to be a player-coach,'' Jacobs said in a 2006 interview with BusinessWeek. "You have to have clients and be involved in big transactions. Otherwise, you get no respect.''
Lazard shares [ LAZ 36.82 
-0.42 (-1.13%) ] drifted down 0.35 percent to $39.51 in morning trading.
Jacobs joined Lazard in 1988 and was named a partner in 1991. He became deputy chairman in 2002.
He was chosen to succeed Wasserstein in large part because he provides a bridge to the days when Lazard was a private partnership, said William Cohan, author of the Lazard history ''The Last Tycoons.''
Jacobs played a key role in keeping the firm together through tumultuous times, Cohan said. Wasserstein turned Lazard from a partnership legendary for its private fiefdoms and infighting into a public company.
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