Morgan Stanley

History

Early years (1935–1997)

Morgan Stanley traces its roots to J.P. Morgan & Co. After the U.S. Congress passed the Glass–Steagall Act in 1933, it was no longer possible for a corporation to have investment banking and commercial banking businesses under a single holding entity. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose the commercial banking business over the investment banking business. As a result, some of the employees of J.P. Morgan & Co., most notably Henry S. Morgan (grandson of J. P. Morgan) and Harold Stanley, left J.P. Morgan & Co. and joined others from the Drexel partners to form Morgan Stanley. The firm formally opened its doors for business on September 16, 1935, at 2 Wall Street, New York City, just down the street from J.P. Morgan. The firm was involved with the distribution of 1938 US$100 million (~$1.74 billion in 2024) of debentures for the United States Steel Corporation as the lead underwriter. The firm also obtained the distinction of being the lead syndicate in the 1939 U.S. rail financing. The firm went through a reorganization in 1941 to allow for more activity in its securities business.

The firm was led by Perry Hall, the last founder to lead Morgan Stanley, from 1951 until 1961. During this period, the firm co-managed the World Bank's triple-A-rated bonds offering of 1952, as well as coming up with General Motors' US$300 million debt issue, US$231 million IBM stock offering, and the US$250 million AT&T's debt offering.

Morgan Stanley credits itself with having created the first viable computer model for financial analysis in 1962, thereby starting a new trend in the field of financial analysis. Future president and chairman Dick Fisher contributed to the computer model as a young employee, learning the Fortran and COBOL programming languages at IBM. In 1967, it established the Morgan & Cie, International in Paris in an attempt to enter the European securities market. The firm acquired Brooks, Harvey & Co., Inc. in 1967 and established a presence in the real estate business. The sales and trading business is believed to be the brainchild of Bob Baldwin.

In 1996, Morgan Stanley acquired Van Kampen American Capital.

After the merger (since 1997)

On February 5, 1997, the company merged with Dean Witter Discover & Co., the spun-off financial services business of Sears Roebuck. Dean Witter's chairman and CEO, Philip J. Purcell, continued to hold the same roles in the newly merged "Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co." Morgan Stanley's president John J. Mack became the firm's president and chief operating officer. In 1998, the name of the firm was changed to "Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co." Originally, the name was chosen to be the combination of the two predecessor companies to avoid tension between the two firms. Eventually, in 2001 "Dean Witter" was further dropped and the name became "Morgan Stanley" for unrevealed reasons. The merged firm began expanding overseas operations: in 1999, Mack set up a joint venture in India with local partner JM Financial.

Morgan Stanley had offices located on 35 floors across buildings 1, 2, and 5 of the World Trade Center, and was the largest tenant of the WTC complex. Most of these offices had been inherited from Dean Witter which had occupied the space since the mid-1980s. The firm lost 13 employees during the September 11 attacks in 2001 (Thomas F. Swift, Wesley Mercer, Jennifer de Jesus, Joseph DiPilato, Nolbert Salomon, Godwin Forde, Steve R. Strauss, Lindsay C. Herkness, Albert Joseph, Jorge Velazquez, Titus Davidson, Charles Laurencin and Security Director Rick Rescorla) in the towers, while 2,687 were successfully evacuated by Rick Rescorla. The surviving employees moved to temporary headquarters in the vicinity. In 2005 Morgan Stanley moved 2,300 of its employees back to lower Manhattan, at that time the largest such move.

In 2003, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital named the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital in recognition of the firm's sponsorship of the hospital, which largely funded its construction through philanthropy. The initiative began under CEO Philip J. Purcell and was completed under John Mack. Employees at the firm have been involved with the hospital since the 1990s and personally donated to the construction of the current child-friendly building, which opened in November 2003.

The company found itself in the midst of a management crisis starting in March 2005 that resulted in a loss of the firm's staff. Purcell resigned as CEO of Morgan Stanley in June 2005 when a highly public campaign by former Morgan Stanley partners threatened to damage the firm and challenged his refusal to aggressively increase leverage, increase risk, enter the sub-prime mortgage business and make expensive acquisitions; the same strategies that forced Morgan Stanley into massive write-downs, related to the subprime mortgage crisis, by 2007.

Organization

The company's 3 divisions are as follows:

Institutional Securities Group

Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities is the most profitable business segment. This business segment provides institutions with investment banking services such as capital raising and financial advisory services such as mergers and acquisitions advisory, restructurings, real estate and project finance, and corporate lending. The segment also encompasses the Equities and the Fixed Income divisions of the firm; trading is anticipated to maintain its position as the "engine room" of the company. Among the major U.S. banks, Morgan Stanley sources the highest portion of revenues from fixed-income underwriting, which was reported at 6.0% of total revenue in FY12.

Wealth Management

The Global Wealth Management Group provides stockbrokerage and investment advisory services. This segment provides financial and wealth planning services to its clients, who are primarily high-net-worth individuals.

On January 13, 2009, the Global Wealth Management Group was merged with Citi's Smith Barney to form Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Morgan Stanley owned 51% of the entity, and Citi held 49%. On May 31, 2012, Morgan Stanley exercised its option to purchase an additional 14% of the joint venture from Citi. In June 2013, Morgan Stanley stated it had secured all regulatory approvals to buy Citigroup's remaining 35% stake in Smith Barney and would proceed to finalize the deal.

In February 2019, the company announced the acquisition of Solium Capital, a manager of employee stock plans, for $900 million (~$1.09 billion in 2024).

In October 2020, the company completed its acquisition of E-Trade, a deal announced in February 2020 for $13 billion, the biggest acquisition by a U.S. bank since the 2008 financial crisis.

Investment Management

Investment Management provides asset management products and services in equity, fixed income, alternative investments, real estate investment, and private equity to institutional and retail clients through third-party retail distribution channels, intermediaries and Morgan Stanley's institutional distribution channel. Morgan Stanley's asset management activities were principally conducted under the Morgan Stanley and Van Kampen brands until 2009.

On October 19, 2009, Morgan Stanley announced that it would sell Van Kampen to Invesco for $1.5 billion (~$2.13 billion in 2024), but would retain the Morgan Stanley brand. It provides asset management products and services to institutional investors worldwide, including pension plans, corporations, private funds, non-profit organizations, foundations, endowments, governmental agencies, insurance companies and banks.

On September 29, 2013, Morgan Stanley announced a partnership with Longchamp Asset Management, a French-based asset manager that specializes in the distribution of UCITS hedge funds, and La Française AM, a multi-specialist asset manager with a 10-year track record in alternative investments.

In March 2018, Morgan Stanley acquired Mesa West, a leading U.S. commercial real estate credit platform, adding to its existing investment strategies and product offerings across real assets and private credit.

In March 2021, Morgan Stanley completed its acquisition of Eaton Vance, a deal announced in October 2020. With the addition of Eaton Vance, Morgan Stanley now had $5.4 trillion of client assets across its Wealth Management and Investment Management segments.

Ownership

Morgan Stanley is mainly owned by institutional investors, who own 62.00% of shares. The largest shareholders as of 31 December 2024 were:

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (23.38%)

State Street Corporation (6.90%)

The Vanguard Group (6.83%)

BlackRock (5.90%)

JP Morgan Chase (2.54%)

Capital International Investors (1.86%)

Geode Capital Management (1.60%)

2,677 other institutions (12.99%)

Awards and honors

In 2020, Morgan Stanley was named IFR's Bank of the Year, and in 2021 Morgan Stanley was named Euromoney's best investment bank in the world.

Fast Company named Morgan Stanley in its list of Best Workplaces for Innovators in 2020 and 2021.

Great Place to Work Institute Japan in 2007 ranked Morgan Stanley as the second best corporation to work in Japan, based on the opinions of the employees and the corporate culture.

The Times listed Morgan Stanley 5th in its 20 Best Big Companies to Work For 2006.

Morgan Stanley was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mother.

Family Digest named Morgan Stanley one of the "Best Companies for African Americans" in June 2004.

Controversies

2000s

In 2003, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $125 million to settle its portion of a $1.4 billion settlement of a suit brought by Eliot Spitzer, the Attorney General of New York, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD, now known as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and a number of state securities regulators, relating to intentionally misleading research motivated by a desire to win investment banking business with the companies covered.

In 2004, Morgan Stanley settled a sex discrimination suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $54 million (~$85.7 million in 2024). In 2007, the firm agreed to pay $46 million (~$66.8 million in 2024) to settle a class action lawsuit brought by eight female brokers.

In July 2004, the firm paid NASD a $2.2 million (~$3.49 million in 2024) fine for more than 1,800 late disclosures of reportable information about its brokers.

In September 2004, the firm paid a $19 million (~$30.2 million in 2024) fine imposed by NYSE for failure to deliver prospectuses to customers in registered offerings, inaccurate reporting of certain program trading information, short sale violations, failures to fingerprint new employees and failure to timely file exchange forms.

The New York Stock Exchange imposed a $19 million (~$29.2 million in 2024) fine on January 12, 2005, for alleged regulatory and supervisory lapses. At the time, it was the largest fine ever imposed by the NYSE.

On May 16, 2005, a Florida jury found that Morgan Stanley failed to give adequate information to Ronald Perelman about Sunbeam thereby defrauding him and causing damages to him of $604 million (~$929 million in 2024). In addition, punitive damages were added for total damages of $1.450 billion. This verdict was directed by the judge as a sanction against Morgan Stanley after the firm's attorneys infuriated the court by failing and refusing to produce documents, and falsely telling the court that certain documents did not exist. The ruling was overturned on March 21, 2007, and Morgan Stanley was no longer required to pay the $1.57 billion (~$2.28 billion in 2024) verdict.

2010s

In April 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the firm agreed to pay $14 million related to an attempt to hide prohibited trading activity in oil futures.

Garth R. Peterson, one of Morgan Stanley's highest-ranking real estate executives in China, pleaded guilty on April 25, 2012, to violating U.S. federal anti-corruption laws. He was charged with secretly acquiring millions of dollars' worth of property investments for himself and a Chinese government official. The official steered business to Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $5 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and an additional $1.75 million to CME and the Chicago Board of Trade. Morgan Stanley employees improperly executed fictitious sales in Eurodollar and Treasury Note futures contracts.

On August 7, 2012, it was announced that Morgan Stanley would pay $4.8 million in fines to settle a price-fixing scandal, which had been estimated to have cost New Yorkers $300 million to date. Morgan Stanley made no admission of any wrongdoing; however, the Justice Department commented that it hoped this would "send a message to the banking industry".

In Morgan Stanley v. Skowron, 989 F. Supp. 2d 356 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), applying New York's faithless servant doctrine to a case involving Morgan Stanley's hedge fund subsidiary, United States District Judge Shira Scheindlin held that a hedge fund's employee engaging in insider trading in violation of his company's code of conduct, which also required him to report his misconduct, must repay his employer the full $31 million (~$41 million in 2024) his employer paid him as compensation during his period of faithlessness. Judge Scheindlin called the insider trading the "ultimate abuse of a portfolio manager's position". The judge also wrote:"In addition to exposing Morgan Stanley to government investigations and direct financial losses, Skowron's behavior damaged the firm's reputation, a valuable corporate asset."

In February 2014, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $1.25 billion to the US government, as a penalty for concealing the full risk associated with mortgage securities with the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

2020s

In May 2020, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $5 million penalty to settle allegations made by the SEC that the corporation provided misleading information to some clients in the retail wrap fee programs regarding trade-execution services and transaction costs.

In June 2020, Morgan Stanley was sued by their former head of diversity Marilyn Booker for discrimination. She alleged that she was fired for pushing for the restructure of the company's training program for black financial advisers. She claimed this would help more recruits to succeed in a bid to rectify her perceived diversity problem that too few of the company's employees were black. Her lawsuit also claimed that black employees experienced discrimination such as disparate treatment at work as well as retaliation and unequal pay.

In September 2022, the SEC announced charges against Morgan Stanley stemming from the firm's extensive failures, over a five-year period, to protect the personal identifying information of approximately 15 million customers. Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $35 million penalty to settle the SEC charges.

In November 2023, Attorney General of Connecticut William Tong announced a $6.5 million settlement with Morgan Stanley for compromising the personal information of its customers due to negligent security practices.

In January 2024, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $249 million to settle a criminal investigation and a related Securities and Exchange Commission probe related to the unauthorized disclosure of block trades to investors, by the bank's supervisor for such trades and another employee.

In February 2025, a group of 17 U.S. state attorneys general criticized Morgan Stanley for making improper or inadequate disclosures about investments in China. The lawmakers cited that the firm, along with several other top U.S. asset managers, were downplaying risks associated with China given its status as "designated foreign adversary" and its intention to invade Taiwan.

In 2025, The Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office announced it was "imposing fines totalling 101 million euros on two Morgan Stanley (MS) companies in London and Amsterdam for dividend withholding tax (dividend tax) evasion."

Global and other headquarters

The Morgan Stanley world headquarters are located in New York City, the European headquarters are in London, Asia Pacific headquarters are in both Hong Kong and Tokyo, Canada headquarters in Toronto. Middle East (MENA) Headquarters in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Other offices operating in the Middle East are located in Riyadh and Qatar.

Notable alumni

Dan Ammann, former General Motors President; chief executive officer, Cruise Automation

Lauren Bessette, businesswoman and sister of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy

Barton Biggs, author and hedge fund manager

Erskine Bowles, Clinton White House Chief of Staff

Richard A. Debs, Chairman of Carnegie Hall; Middle East power-broker

Bob Diamond, former chief executive officer, Barclays

Richard B. Fisher, chairman of the board, Rockefeller University and Bard College; member, Trilateral Commission

William E. Ford, General Atlantic Chairman and CEO

Eric Gleacher, Founder of Gleacher & Co.

Nina Godiwalla, author of Suits: A Woman on Wall Street

Robert F. Greenhill, founder of Greenhill & Co.

David Grimaldi, Chief Administrative Officer, New Castle County Government

John Havens, former president, Citigroup, Inc.

Lindsay Goldberg, pioneering buy-out firm founded by alumni Alan Goldberg and Bob Lindsay in 2001

Nigel MacEwan, former chief executive officer, Kleinwort Benson North America; former president, Merrill Lynch