Morgan Stanley is thinking big. Fuelled by record net revenues ($61.8 billion) in 2024 that led “one of the strongest years in the firm’s history” according to CEO Ted Pick, the bank last year promoted a slew of senior bankers to shore up its investment bank leadership.
In the ECM space, this saw the promotion of former MS head of ECM Americas Eddie Molloy to global co-head of ECM, alongside New York-based Arnaud Blanchard (former head of equity syndicate), and former head of EMEA ECM Martin Thorneycroft in London.
The new leadership team are justifiably proud of their achievements, with Morgan Stanley leading global ECM deal volume and global IPO volume in 2024 (according to Dealogic), bookrunning 304 deals (including 65 IPOs), and taking a 9.4% market share. The US accounts for over a third of this activity, with 139 deals last year and volumes over $28 billion giving the bank an 11.1% share of the market, virtually neck and neck with its two largest peers, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, as the market continued to recover.
“I’m super proud to work with the best ECM team on the Street,” says Molloy. “2024 was better than 2023 which was better than 2022. We’re definitely on the road to normalisation.”
North American IPOs had a decent year, and Morgan Stanley was notable not only for the breadth of its presence, but for the complexity of some of these transactions and the knowledge of the market that they required. Acting as lead left on the $5.1 billion Lineage IPO in July, for example, the firm led all aspects of execution including an extensive testing-the-waters (with in-person asset tours) and roadshows.
From acquisition financing to follow-ons to blocks, 2024 was characterised by the standard of its client service
The biggest IPO globally in 2024 and the largest real estate IPO ever (as per Dealogic), the deal was upsized by 20%. Another standout was the October listing of StandardAero on the New York Stock Exchange, with Morgan Stanley as lead bookrunner. The biggest aerospace IPO since 2006, the offering was again upsized from 30 million to 60 million shares, leveraging appetite in the end-of-year rush.
But it’s not just in the IPO market that the MS team made its mark. From acquisition financing to follow-ons to blocks, 2024 was characterised by the standard of its client service. “I don’t think it can be overstated that when our most sophisticated clients need to do something complex, they tend to choose Morgan Stanley as lead left,” says Molloy.
The AJ Gallagher follow-on offering deal is a case in point, where the bank was able to raise $10 billion for the firm in a one-day marketed transaction to fund a portion of the cash consideration of the firm’s acquisition of AssuredPartner, which also included a related $5 billion bond financing and a $13.45 billion bridge facility, also led by Morgan Stanley. The team executed a wall-cross (on a sole basis) before the public launch which saw the offering multiple times oversubscribed from both new and existing investors. “It was highly strategic and had very limited price impact,” explains Molloy. “It was a very unique transaction that we are extremely proud of.”
In blocks, a space in which the bank has long been a leader, standout deals included the Keurig Dr Pepper’s $2.9 billion secondary block offering in February 2024, which priced at a tight discount and showcased the bank’s execution expertise in navigating turbulent share price volatility following a soft earnings print to achieve the largest consumer and retail block on record.
Another key trend for 2024 was the continued growth of syndicated private placement activity, which led the bank to invest additionally in its private capital markets team, led by Russell Schmidt. “Companies are increasingly raising capital or recycling capital before going public. It’s always happened in some form but we’re starting to see that market innovate and evolve dramatically,” notes Molloy. “This is one of the most exciting areas we are seeing.”
