Morgan Stanley’s debt bankers increased revenue 93% in the fourth quarter, by far the biggest jump on Wall Street and capping a record year for that business.
The firm’s debt-underwriting revenue came in at $785 million for the last three months of the year, according to a statement Thursday, while analysts were expecting $635 million. That brought total investment-banking fees to $2.41 billion, up 47% from a year ago. The company reported record annual net income.
Under Chief Executive Officer Ted Pick, Morgan Stanley has been making a push into debt capital markets. The effort is particularly evident in the artificial-intelligence landscape, where the firm arranged tens of billions of dollars of debt in the fourth quarter alone, including more than $27 billion for Meta Platforms Inc.’s Hyperion data center.
Meanwhile, net new assets in Morgan Stanley’s closely watched wealth business came in at $122.3 billion, far above expectations.
“All of our investments are working,” Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya said in an interview, pointing to share gains in both advisory and debt capital markets. As for data centers specifically, “the hyperscalers are looking for access to capital markets and we’re there to provide those structuerd solutions.”
Shares of Morgan Stanley, which were up 38% in the 12 months through Wednesday, rose 0.3% at 8:05 a.m. in early New York trading.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. wrap up fourth-quarter earnings for the biggest US banks, after rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. announced results earlier this week. In discussing those firms’ results, executives took turns answering questions about President Donald Trump’s demand that banks cap credit-card interest rates at 10%.
