Morgan Stanley Sells $8 Billion in Big Banks’ Bond Bonanza

Caleb Mutua
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(Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley sold $8 billion of bonds Wednesday, following its release of higher-than-expected quarterly revenue, as it joined rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. in tapping the US investment-grade market this week.

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The longest portion of the four-part offering, an 11-year security, yields 1.25 percentage points above Treasuries after initial discussions of around 1.45 percentage points, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, added the person, who asked not to be identified as the details are private.

JPMorgan issued the same four types of notes that Morgan Stanley marketed, with its sale raising $9 billion to kick off an expected onslaught of new bonds from America’s biggest banks. The spreads on Morgan Stanley’s bonds were each 0.1 percentage point wider than JPMorgan’s.

The six largest lenders are expected to sell as much as $33 billion in corporate bonds this month following their release of first-quarter results. Morgan Stanley’s trading and wealth units’ revenue cruised past analysts’ estimates That followed blowout earnings from peer Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which sold a $2.25 billion high-yield security Tuesday.

CreditSights analysts Peter Simon and Iris Shi wrote in a note that they would be buyers of the 11-year note if spreads were at least 1.25 percentage points, below which they would prefer the same bond Morgan Stanley issued in January.

“We see better valuation among some of the money center banks — particularly Citigroup and Bank of America — but Like Morgan Stanley relative to Goldman given similar spread levels recently,” the analysts said.

--With assistance from Michael Gambale.

(Updates with deal pricing.)

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