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Thierry Porte, President of Morgan Stanley Japan, had spent the brisk November day in Tokyo with Eric Best, Morgan Stanley's Head of Scenario Planning, outlining the exercise that all of the managing directors in Japan would participate in shortly. Japan remained mired in a recession and frustratingly unresponsive to attempts to stimulate economic activity. The US-led worldwide economic slowdown, partly triggered by the post-September 2001 war against terrorism, complicated the situation and contributed to tough times within the investment banking industry. Porte had been at the helm of the Tokyo office since 1995 and had grown it to a revenue base of USD1.2 billion and 1,500 employees - a point where it made a healthy contribution to the firm's bottom line and was its second target non-US office (after London). He contemplated whether this was the time to invest further in Japan, to maintain course, or to actively steer resources out of Japan.