CEO James Gorman said “we’ll do deals,” and the $500 billion money manager adds the right mix of assets and culture to the investment bank.
Morgan Stanley might have officially announced on Thursday that it was acquiring Eaton Vance Corp. for about $7 billion, but for those who have been listening to Chief Executive Officer James Gorman, it was never truly a matter of whether the white-shoe Wall Street bank would make such a move but rather when and with whom. In Eaton Vance, Gorman seems to have gotten just what he wanted. But don’t take it from me, take it from the CEO himself. This is what he said during a virtual conference in June, when asked about where he saw Morgan Stanley’s asset-management business headed in the years ahead: Eaton Vance, a Boston-based firm with more than $500 billion in assets under management, seems to check all the boxes. For one, it’s the right size for a splashy acquisition. With this move, Morgan Stanley Investment Management will manage about $1.2 trillion of assets, finally reaching Gorman’s goal for $1 trillion. Recall that earlier this year, just before the coronavirus pandemic reached the U.S., Franklin Resources Inc., with about $700 billion in assets, announced it would buy Legg Mason Inc. and absorb its $800 billion in assets. Around this time two years ago, Invesco Ltd. announced a plan to acquire OppenheimerFunds, which managed more than $246 billion in assets at the time. The asset mix also fits with Gorman’s vision. He said Morgan Stanley “could definitely have more and different style managers across our active equities business.
