Morgan Stanley

In 1933, the U.S. Congress passed the Banking Act of 1933 (the Glass-Steagall Act), forcing banks to choose between investment banking and commercial banking. J.P. Morgan chose to keep its commercial banking business and give up investment banking and securities trading, creating the conditions for some of its partners to form a separate investment bank.⁠[1][1]

In 1935, several J.P. Morgan partners worked out the details of a new investment bank at the summer home of colleague Thomas Lamont, deciding that several partners, including J. Pierpont Morgan’s grandson Henry S. Morgan, would leave the bank and form a new one. On September 16, 1935, Morgan Stanley & Co. opened for business at 2 Wall Street; its founding directors were Harold Stanley, William Ewing, Henry S. Morgan, John M. Young, Edward H. York, and Perry E. Hall, and it opened with six officers and 13 employees. Harold Stanley served as President.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

One week after opening, the firm debuted on the bond market with a $19 million bond offering for Consumers Power Company. Henry S. Morgan’s phrase “first-class business in a first-class way” became the firm’s motto and still appears on its website.⁠[1][1][2]

In 1938, the firm led a group of 102 underwriters in a $100 million debenture offering for U.S. Steel.⁠[1]

In 1941, the firm reorganized as a partnership to qualify for membership in the New York Stock Exchange and expand into the brokerage business. In 1942, with approval to transfer a seat from Clarence R. Hayes to partner John M. Young, Morgan Stanley & Co. became a member of the NYSE.⁠[1][1]

In 1947, the firm led the inaugural $250 million bond issue of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank).⁠[1][2]

In 1953, Judge Harold R. Medina dismissed the U.S. government’s antitrust case against Morgan Stanley and 16 other securities firms. Starting that year, the firm managed a series of record stock and bond offerings for General Motors, beginning with a $300 million bond offering.⁠[1][1]

In 1962, working with client IBM, the firm created one of the first computer-modeling technologies for financial analysis.⁠[1]

In 1967, the firm established Morgan & Cie International in Paris to tap the European market for international stocks and bonds; in 1975 it bought the remaining stake and renamed the business Morgan Stanley International, and in 1977 it opened the international business’s headquarters in London.⁠[1][1][1]

In 1970, the firm began partially incorporating, completing its transition from a partnership by July 1975; the same year it established a presence in Japan, among the first global investment banks to do so.⁠[1][1]

In 1972, the firm launched a sales and trading business and, in the same period, expanded divisions including research, M&A, and real estate, beginning a broader transformation of the firm.⁠[1][2]

In 1980, the firm co-managed the initial public offering of Apple Computer, which priced at $22 a share and raised more than $100 million.⁠[1][1]

In 1984, the firm launched a prime brokerage business providing fund managers with a range of services from capital raising to back-office support; the same year it introduced TAPS, its first automated trading system, and Richard B. Fisher became President.⁠[1][1][2][1]

On March 21, 1986, Morgan Stanley became a publicly traded company, selling a 20% stake that raised nearly $300 million in new capital. That year the firm also bought a stake in client Capital International and expanded its global stock market indices under the name Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI).⁠[1][1]

In 1993, John J. Mack became President of Morgan Stanley. The same year, the firm opened its first office in India, in Mumbai.⁠[1][1]

In 1995, the firm teamed up with the state-owned China Construction Bank to launch China International Capital Corporation, China’s first joint venture investment bank. The same year, analysts Mary Meeker and Chris DePuy released The Internet Report.⁠[1][1]

On May 31, 1997, Morgan Stanley Group Inc. and Dean Witter, Discover & Co. completed a merger of equals in which the former was merged into the latter; the combined company was called Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co. and brought together three brands: Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, and Discover Card. As of the end of November 1997, the company had the third-largest account executive sales organization in the United States (9,946 account executives and 399 branches) and, with about 40 million general purpose credit card accounts, was the nation’s largest credit card issuer as measured by number of accounts and cardmembers.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3]

In 1999, the firm served as lead underwriter for UPS’s $5.47 billion initial public offering, the largest IPO ever at the time.⁠[1]

On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack; Morgan Stanley Dean Witter was the largest tenant there, with about 3,700 employees working at the site. Head of security Rick Rescorla died while helping evacuate employees. After the attack, the firm relocated its employees to other facilities under its business recovery plans.⁠[1][1][1][4][4]

In June 2002, the company changed its legal name from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. to Morgan Stanley. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1981, and its predecessor companies date back to 1924.⁠[5][5]

In 2003, the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, funded with the firm’s support, opened in Manhattan, with $60 million coming from firm employees.⁠[1][1]

In 2004, the firm led Google’s $4.4 billion initial public offering.⁠[2]

In March 2005, eight retired former Morgan Stanley executives published an open letter to the board calling for the removal of Chairman and CEO Philip Purcell. In June of that year, the company signed a settlement agreement with Purcell, and John J. Mack became Chairman and CEO.⁠[1][6][6]

On June 30, 2007, the company completed the spin-off of Discover Financial Services, distributing all Discover shares to stockholders at one Discover share for every two Morgan Stanley shares, ending its involvement in the credit card and electronic payment services business.⁠[7][7][1]

During the financial crisis, on September 21, 2008, Morgan Stanley obtained Federal Reserve approval to become a bank holding company upon the conversion of its Utah industrial bank, Morgan Stanley Bank (Utah), to a national bank; on September 23, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency authorized the bank to commence business as a national bank.⁠[8][8][8]

On October 13, 2008, the company issued Series B and Series C preferred stock to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Japan’s largest banking group, for $9 billion, giving MUFG a 21% ownership interest on a fully diluted basis, and the company set about developing a global alliance with MUFG. In late October, the company was among the initial group of institutions participating in the Capital Purchase Program under the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), selling $10 billion of preferred stock and warrants to the Treasury; in June 2009, the company repurchased the preferred stock for $10.086 billion.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][9][9]

On January 13, 2009, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup announced an agreement to combine Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management Group with Citi’s Smith Barney and other businesses in a joint venture, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. The joint venture was formed on May 31, 2009, with Morgan Stanley holding 51%; in 2012 it bought an additional 14% stake from Citi for $1.89 billion, raising its interest to 65%; and on June 28, 2013, it bought Citi’s remaining 35% for $4.725 billion, taking full ownership of the business.⁠[8][9][9][10][10]

On September 10, 2009, the board announced that Co-President James P. Gorman would become Chief Executive Officer effective January 1, 2010, with John J. Mack continuing as Chairman. Gorman had served as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Global Wealth Management Group from February 2006 to April 2008 and was named Chairman of the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture in January 2009.⁠[11][11][11][9]

On October 2, 2020, under a merger agreement dated February 20, 2020, the company completed its acquisition of E*TRADE Financial, with each share of E*TRADE common stock converted into 1.0432 shares of Morgan Stanley common stock. On October 8, the company entered into an agreement to acquire Eaton Vance.⁠[12][12][12][13]

On March 1, 2021, the company completed its stock-and-cash acquisition of Eaton Vance, with each Eaton Vance share exchanged for 0.5833 Morgan Stanley shares and $28.25 in cash. Then-Chairman and CEO Gorman said that after the deal the firm would oversee $5.4 trillion of client assets across its Wealth Management and Investment Management segments; Eaton Vance Chairman and CEO Thomas E. Faust Jr. became Chairman of Morgan Stanley Investment Management.⁠[14][14][14][14][14]

On September 20, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged subsidiary Morgan Stanley Smith Barney with failing, as far back as 2015, to properly dispose of devices containing personal information of about 15 million customers: the firm hired a moving and storage company with no experience in data destruction to decommission thousands of hard drives and servers, some of which were resold and auctioned online, and most of which were never recovered. MSSB agreed to pay a $35 million penalty to settle.⁠[15][15][15][15][15][15][15]

In 2024, the company formed a strategic partnership with OpenAI, which it lists as one of the key moments in its 90-year history.⁠[2]

In January 2024, Edward Pick became Chief Executive Officer, and from January 2025 he also served as Chairman of the board. He had previously been Co-President from June 2021 to December 2023 and Head of Institutional Securities from July 2018 to December 2023.⁠[16][16]

On January 12, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged subsidiary Morgan Stanley & Co. and Pawan Passi, the former head of its equity syndicate desk, with disclosing information about upcoming block trades to certain buy-side investors from June 2018 to August 2021, despite sellers’ confidentiality requests, allowing them to pre-position by taking short positions and reducing the firm’s risk in buying block trades; the firm was also charged with failing to enforce information barriers. The SEC found that the firm willfully violated Sections 10(b) and 15(g) of the Securities Exchange Act, censured it, and ordered it to pay about $138 million in disgorgement, about $28 million in prejudgment interest, and an $83 million civil penalty, more than $249 million in total. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal resolutions with the firm and Passi the same day.⁠[17][17][17][17][17][17][17][17][17][17]

In 2025, the company marked its 90th anniversary. It summarized its integrated firm model as “four pillars” and said it had grown from a 13-person partnership into a global financial services firm operating in more than 40 countries with over 80,000 employees.⁠[2][2]

In 2025, the company’s net revenues were $70.6 billion, up 14% from $61.8 billion in 2024; net income applicable to Morgan Stanley was $16.9 billion, up 26%; and return on equity was 16.6%. Institutional Securities had net revenues of $33.1 billion, Wealth Management $31.8 billion (with $356 billion in net new assets for the year), and Investment Management $6.5 billion. As of the end of 2025, Wealth Management client assets totaled $7.381 trillion, and the company had about 83,000 employees across 42 countries; a workforce action in March of that year affected about 2% of its global workforce at the time.⁠[16][16][16][16][16][16][16][16][16][16][16]

As of September 2026, Morgan Stanley was one of the signed tenants of the office building at 1691 Michigan Ave. in Miami Beach. The building was redeveloped for $100 million by developer Robert Rivani and branded as a “Class X” premium office building; other tenants include PlayboyPlayboy, Inc.Playboy, Inc. is a publicly traded American consumer brand and licensing company that owns brands including Playboy magazine and the Rabbit Head Design, and operates the lingerie brand Honey Birdette.Open the full entry and WixWix.comWix.com is an Israeli website and application creation platform company whose drag-and-drop and AI tools let users build websites and apps.Open the full entry.⁠[18][19][19][19]

Morgan Stanley operates through three business segments, Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management, and through its subsidiaries and affiliates provides a wide variety of products and services to clients including corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals; its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MS. The company is a financial holding company regulated by the Federal Reserve under the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, with its global headquarters at 1585 Broadway in New York; its principal offices outside the U.S. include London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.⁠[16][16][16][16][16][16]

Morgan Stanley: Official website: https://www.morganstanley.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

X: Public account: https://x.com/morganstanley (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/morgan-stanley (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mgstnly (opens in a new window)⁠[2]