Morgan Stanley

The trouble with being a broking house such as Morgan Stanley is that you can’t play politics in the same way Citigroup, JPMorgan or Bank of America can. No “Look how many small businesses we’re lending to” or “We modified a million mortgages last year”. Brokers are purely in the game of making rich institutions and individuals richer. Hopefully, along the way the investors will make money too.Which means performance is everything. And the reality is that Morgan Stanley’s shares have trailed rival broker Goldman Sachs by 70 per cent over the past...

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Morgan Stanley Defers 60% of Bonuses

Morgan Stanley has sought to pre-empt new rules capping cash pay-outs on Wall Street, deferring 60 per cent of employees’ 2010 bonuses. The announcement came as the bank reported a higher-than-expected 88 per cent jump in fourth-quarter profits in spite of a fall in fixed income trading revenues. Proponents of deferred pay argue the practice can help dissuade bankers and traders from taking excessive risks by chasing short-term profits. While...

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Volcker rule

At the pace of a brisk glacier, the US Volcker rule is taking shape. This week the US Financial Stability Oversight Council released its recommendations on how to create the rules that ban banks from proprietary trading, and from investing in private equity and hedge funds. It wants them to be “consistent”, yet “account for differences”, and “dynamic” yet “predictable”. A mere 81 pages of these suggestions later, the final laws promise to be a maze of regulation. But while few investors will shed a tear for any banker who complains about being...

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Fund a ‘sticking plaster’ for job cuts

A flagship government investment fund aimed at rebalancing the economy could prove no more than a “sticking plaster” over the wound created by public sector job cuts unless dismantled regional power structures are rebuilt, business leaders say.After abolishing regional development agencies outside London with an annual budget of ?1.5bn, the coalition government has offered a fund of ?1.4bn over three years to help areas lessen their dependence...

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