The Morgan Stanley wealth management arm has reported net revenues of $4.39bn for the first quarter of 2019, almost flat compared to last year’s revenues of $4.37bn.
The wealth unit’s pre-tax income for the three-month period to 31 March 2019 also remained nearly stable at $1.2bn.
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Pre-tax margin stood at 27.1%.
The wealth unit’s asset management revenues dropped 5% year-on-year to $2.36bn.
This was said to be driven by lower asset level pricing. However, transactional revenues of the wealth division increased 9% to $817m from $747m.
Morgan Stanley attributed the rise to “gains on investments associated with certain employee deferred compensation plans”.
The wealth unit’s net interest income rose 6% to $1.13bn from $1.07bn.
This was said to be due to an increase in bank lending and higher interest rates.
Morgan Stanley wealth management client liabilities were $82bn at the end of March 2019, versus $80bn in the previous year.
In Investment Management, pre-tax income increased 17% to $174m from $148m.
Net revenues at the division rose 12% on a year-on-year basis to $804m.
Overall, Morgan Stanley registered net revenues of $10.28bn in the first quarter of 2019.
This is a 7% fall from $11.07bn in the corresponding quarter of 2018.
Net income applicable to Morgan Stanley was $2.43bn, down 9% from $2.67bn last year.
Morgan Stanley chairman and CEO James Gorman said: “We delivered solid earnings despite a slow start to the year following the turbulent markets in the fourth quarter.
“With an ROE of 13.1% and ROTCE of 14.9%, our results demonstrated the stability and breadth of our global franchise.”
