Morgan Stanley has agreed a deal to buy online discount brokerage E*Trade Financial in an all-stock deal worth around $13 billion.
The acquisition – the largest deal by a Wall Street bank since the 2008 financial crisis – will see Morgan Stanley’s wealth management unit add over 5.2 million client accounts and more than $360 billion of retail client assets, supplementing its traditional full service-advisor-driven model with E*Trade’s direct-to-consumer, digitally-driven offering.
James Gorman, CEO, Morgan Stanley, says: “E*Trade represents an extraordinary growth opportunity for our Wealth Management business and a leap forward in our Wealth Management strategy” E*Trade CEO Mike Pizzi will continue to run the unit.
Source: Finextra
