Morgan Stanley History

The firm formally opened the doors for business on September 16, 1935, at 2 Wall Street, New York City, just down the street from J.P Morgan.

By the end of its first full year of operations, Morgan Stanley had acquired a 24% market share of negotiated corporate and foreign issues, and by 1938, Morgan Stanley led all New York investment firms in original bond issues.

In 1939, the committee called a number of investment bankers to testify in order to determine how much power investment banks held over industry through their control of the access to long-term capital markets.

In 1941, the company carried out a reorganization to allow it to venture into the securities business.

Later in 1942, Morgan Stanley joined the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1947, the Justice Department filed suit against Morgan Stanley and 16 other investment banking firms accusing them of conspiring to monopolize and restrain the securities industry.

After three years of pretrial hearings, proceedings opened in the Circuit Court of New York on November 28, 1950.

In 1951, Harold Stanley took a back seat in the operations of the company and Perry Hall, another of Morgan Stanley’s founding partners, took his place.

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.

In 1954, Morgan Stanley managed a $300 million bond issue for General Motors.

Hall remained managing partner until 1961.

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.

In 1966, together with the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, it established a French subsidiary to broaden its international operations.

The firm acquired Brooks, Harvey & Co., Inc. in 1967 and established a presence in the real estate business.

In 1969, Morgan Stanley plunged deeper into real estate financing when it bought a controlling interest in Brooks, Harvey & Company, Inc.

The company created a mergers and acquisition department in 1972 to help its clients find and evaluate appropriate acquisition targets and to provide strategic planning to complete the deals.

In 1973, Morgan Stanley opened a research department and entered the equity markets full-scale.

Morgan Stanley’s Asset Management Division, which began in 1975, became a strong revenue producer.

Morgan Stanley began to offer individual investment services to wealthy individuals and to smaller institutional investors in 1977.

The Dealmakers: Inside the World of Investment Banking, Garden City, New York, Doubleday, 1984.

In 1986, the firm goes public to raise capital for further growth.

The company was the only New York investment bank to increase its profits in 1987.

At that point, Morgan Stanley faced a backlash from its heady days of the 1980s in the form of numerous lawsuits relating to its leveraged buyout and merger and acquisition activities. As a result of a 1991 jury award, the company had to pay $16 million to investors for its part in the failure of First RepublicBank Corp.

Stevenson, Richard W., “Financial Merger Is Scuttled: Morgan Stanley and Warburg Part Ways,” New York Times, December 16,1994, pp.D1–D2.

By 1995, it was ranked the top mergers and acquisitions adviser worldwide and was the number three global underwriter.

The purchase, finalized in January 1996 after which Miller Anderson became a Morgan Stanley subsidiary, added $33 billion in assets under management to Morgan Stanley’s total, an increase of 66 percent.

The 1997 merger of Morgan Stanley Group Inc. and Dean, Witter, Discover & Co. creates the world’s largest securities firm to date.

The merged firm began expanding overseas operations: in 1999, Mack set up a joint venture in India with local partner JM Financial.

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 company found itself in the midst of a management crisis starting in March 2005 that resulted in a loss of the firm's staff.

On December 19, 2006, Morgan Stanley announced the spin-off of its Discover Card unit.

In February 2007, Morgan Stanley announced the end of its Indian joint venture: the bank acquired its local partner's stake in the institutional brokerage business, and sold its own stake in the other businesses.

MUFG Bank, Japan's largest bank, invested $9 billion in a direct purchase of a 21% ownership stake in Morgan Stanley on September 29, 2008.

In 2009, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup agreed to combine their wealth management business segments and renamed the new unit Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

The company was renamed to Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in 2012 after purchasing an additional 14% stake in the unit.

In November 2013, Morgan Stanley announced that it would invest $1 billion to help improve affordable housing as part of a wider push to encourage investment in efforts that aid economic, social and environmental sustainability.

In July 2014, Morgan Stanley's Asian private equity arm announced it had raised around $1.7 billion for its fourth fund in the area.

In December 2015, it was reported that Morgan Stanley would be cutting around 25 percent of its fixed income jobs before month end.

In January 2016, the company reported that it had offices in "more than" 43 countries.

In October 2020, the company completed its acquisition of E-Trade, a deal announced in February 2020.