Winners rationale

Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia is a private bank with a very clear sense of identity – a global private bank based in Hong Kong and Singapore servicing the needs of Asia-based clients. It understands where its strengths lie and what its target market is. Crucially, it calibrates its business activities and operations so as to lead with these strengths. Thus, unlike some of its peers that aim to offer something for everyone — and as a result, tend not to excel in any particular area — Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia, as the bank for Asia’s UHNW, corporates, and asset owners, occupies a unique position in the region’s private banking ecosystem.

The heart of Morgan Stanley’s value proposition is that its private wealth clients receive access to the same institutional platform, investment and research content, and services that its largest and most sophisticated institutional clients do across the globe.

North Asia, China in particular, is the biggest and fastest growing UHNW segment in Asia. UHNWs in that segment tend to be more active hands on investors who have evolving needs for their families as well as businesses. Morgan Stanley’s ability to integrate differentiated investment products, wealth planning and capital markets platform resonates strongly with these clients.

This fact alone makes Morgan Stanley an extremely potent partner for North Asia’s entrepreneurial UHNWs whose needs span the private wealth management and investment banking spectrum.

From providing access to best-in-class product advisory and transactional services across all asset classes, to a carefully curated range of managed solutions, financing solutions that make the most of the bank’s global platform, institutional-grade research and ideas, and IB-led advisory, capital raising, and associate products: the depth and breadth of Morgan Stanley’s service and solutions suite is unparalleled in the rarefied Asian UHNW market.

But what truly separates the bank from its peers is the way Morgan Stanley activates its business and teams across the organisation to cover UHNWs in North Asia — and the region for that matter — holistically. It is able to do this in large part because of the calibre of its team. Morgan Stanley, which is by no means the region’s largest private bank by headcount, has always placed an emphasis on bringing in talent that is entrepreneurial, experienced, and multi-versed in investment strategies and products, and relationship building. The bank focuses on quality rather than quantity of talent.

That said, the private bank is steadily growing its team in Asia, and accordingly, has made important structural changes, including the introduction of a Strategic Advisory Solutions team, to enhance cooperation between the private wealth management and investment banking arms.

As a result, the private bank — and the organisation as a whole — is developing even stickier and more multifaceted relationships with its client base, that includes some of the most demanding and sophisticated UHNW individuals in North Asia.

Indeed, on a year-on-year basis, and for the period under consideration, Morgan Stanley recorded high double-digit increases in transaction-based and recurring income, and strong net inflows including another high double-digit increase in client assets in managed solutions — an investments area where Morgan Stanley has taken considerable strides in recent years.

Add to this the fact that a large percentage of new client accounts opening in 2019 were attributable to client referrals, and it is clear that Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management achieved high levels of client satisfaction by virtue of the quality of its offering and delivery.

Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – North Asia UHNW for 2019.