The combined firms’ Fixed Income group is located in the former Morgan Keegan corporate headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee.

Morgan had been with Courts & Co., Keegan was previously an over-the-counter trader at Equitable Securities, and Gooch had been with Kohlmeyer & Co. John Stokes joined shortly thereafter from Merrill Lynch.

In 1985, the company stock was listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol "MOR" and corporate revenues exceeded $50 million for the first time.

In a nod to the past, the four giant stone griffins that adorned the Hotel King Cotton formerly on the site are displayed in the atrium of the Tower.

Deupree also served as a Director of the Securities Industry Association from 1992 to 1995 and on the Regional Advisory Board of the New York Stock Exchange from 1991 to 1995.

[4] In 1988, bought Jackson, Mississippi-based brokerage Geary & Patterson; in 1989 it bought T.J. Raney & Sons, Arkansas' oldest investment banking firm, George M. Wood & Company in Montgomery, Alabama, and Louisiana investment firm Scharff & Jones.

In 1995, MK bought Trust Company of Chattanooga and renamed it Morgan Trust Company, and ARM, a firm founded by Kyle Rote Jr. and employing super agent Jimmy Sexton -- Athletic Resource Management, a Memphis-based sports agency representing players in the National Basketball Association, National Football League and Major League Baseball.

[5] In 1997, it purchased Atlanta-based underwriting firm Knox, Wall & Co., and investment manager Weibel, Huffman, Keegan.

Dowd Ritter) began to hold sway, many MK employees became disenchanted with the direction of the parent organization.

The transaction created one of the country’s largest full-service wealth management and investment banking firms not headquartered on Wall Street.