Winners rationale

At the heart of the unique value proposition of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia lies the bank’s integrated solutions and servicing platform that is built upon the prowess of Morgan Stanley’s global and Asia investment banking and securities franchise, an organisation-wide culture of management partnership and client-centricity, and the determination of the bank’s management in Asia to ensure effective and agile cross-divisional collaboration.

This is easier said than done, as most banks that pursue a one-bank model would attest. Indeed, the credibility of the integrated proposition depends on the capabilities of the bank’s divisions in their own right, the structures and processes that drive and incentivise collaboration, and, of course, the buy-in of all bankers — who themselves must be of a calibre to identify opportunities and solutions that can only be delivered through close collaboration.

Morgan Stanley’s integrated proposition speaks directly to the sophistication of its Private Wealth clients — essentially the region’s largest UHNWs, corporates and asset owners whose fortunes and futures are tied to Asia’s growth opportunities — China’s in particular. These sophisticated investors expect the same content, access, services, and execution the bank provides its heavyweight institutional clients. It’s not something that any bank could or should offer, but Morgan Stanley’s Asia leadership across divisions has a clear understanding of where its strengths and added value lie, and how to deliver the institutional experience to private clients with needs that span the personal, family, and corporate spheres.

Accordingly, private clients are the direct beneficiaries of the firm’s vaunted investments and products expertise of both its IB and PWM divisions, brought together by its Strategic Advisory Solutions (SAS) unit — established in 2019 and since expanded — whose task it is to lubricate referrals and unlock opportunities at the group level. Thus, Morgan Stanley’s patent strengths at the institutional level — across global advisory, equity and debt capital markets, and financing — are all extended to the private client roster.

It’s a holistic level approach that is generating significant referral flow, including from PWM to IB. The efficacy of SAS not only bears out in the numbers as shown to the Judging Panel, but demonstrates how the bank is using this 360-degree view to attend to client requirements that extend to wealth planning.

Morgan Stanley is also a global research powerhouse that extends this institutional-level resource to private clients. Its Asia research team alone covers approximately 1,400 stocks representing around 90% of the MSCI Asia market cap. The bank harnesses this deep view to deliver investment solutions and strategies that are truly differentiated, performance-proven, and customisable — including Morgan Stanley’s unique research driven discretionary solutions which draw directly from the firm’s widely-recognised Global Best Business Models programme.

Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank — Integrated Platform for 2020.