MORGAN STANLEY AT WORK
“Historically speaking , there ’ s never been a highly sophisticated infrastructure to provide easy liquidity solutions in the private marketplace and Morgan Stanley at Work is taking a progressive approach to solving that challenge ”
KEVIN SWAN CO-HEAD OF GLOBAL PRIVATE MARKETS , MORGAN STANLEY AT WORK
Morgan Stanley at Work reshaping private markets liquidity Although IPOs are generally considered the ultimate liquidity event , private capital markets are continuing to gain momentum in terms of investment interest . As a result , many companies are able to generate the funds required to provide employees with some liquidity on their equity packages , without going public .
These types of events , however – and the management of successful equity programmes – require considerable groundwork to be viable .
And that ’ s where Morgan Stanley at Work comes in : a division of Morgan Stanley that is focused entirely on private and public company share plan administration solutions that empower companies in providing employees workplace financial benefits . Their offering covers equity management , retirement solutions and financial wellness . For private companies wanting to maximise the benefit of their equity programmes , Morgan Stanley at Work offers a number of liquidity solutions .
Morgan Stanley ’ s day-to-day operations primarily consist of investment banking and financial services , so offering solutions that aid in the path to the public markets beyond raising capital has been a natural progression . As a global corporation , it is uniquely positioned to provide an equity management system for the private market that can facilitate recordkeeping , transactions , and money movement . “ If you ’ re a public company , that infrastructure already exists in the form of transfer agents and clearing brokers , where you can easily buy and sell stocks in a public company online or through your financial advisor ,” Swan says .
However , in the private marketplace , this can be more of a challenge , as historically speaking , there ’ s never been a highly sophisticated infrastructure to provide easy liquidity solutions . Morgan Stanley at Work is taking a progressive approach to solving that challenge by building a trading infrastructure and transaction execution framework that caters to private markets and is designed with an issuer perspective .
Specific protocols for private companies Unsurprisingly , the private markets don ’ t operate in the same way as public markets . Regulation is quite different , and the private investor community often has different objectives and time horizons than public investors . Morgan Stanley at Work offers Shareworks – an equity management platform utilised by private companies to manage their cap tables , employee stock plan and liquidity programmes . They have also launched a private market transaction desk that can help execute block sales and other forms of secondary transactions , giving shareholders access to liquidity and clients access to investment opportunities .
52 fintechmagazine . com | June 2023