Morgan Stanley Group

The firm said the first public offering of stock in the 51-year history of the investment company will consist of 4.5 million of its common shares. In a preliminary prospectus, the holding company of Morgan Stanley & Co., the investment banking firm, said it expected the offering to be priced at between $42 and $46 a share, which would raise $189 million to $207 million.

Morgan Stanley will pay $12.5 million to settle regulatory claims that it wrongly withheld e-mails in arbitration cases by saying they were lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was the securities firm's third sanction since 2002 for mishandling records. A Morgan Stanley subsidiary failed on "numerous occasions" to produce e-mails for plaintiffs and regulators, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Thursday. The accord is the first of its kind, providing $9.

Morgan Stanley Group Inc.'s fourth-quarter profit plunged nearly 79% amid weaker revenue from its investment banking and bond trading businesses, the Wall Street firm said Tuesday. Morgan Stanley said it earned $39 million, or 29 cents a share, for the three months ended Jan. 31. That includes a $78-million pretax charge for costs connected with the firm's move to new headquarters. For the year-earlier period, Morgan Stanley earned $181 million, or $2.18 a share.

A former Morgan Stanley finance vice president and her husband, an ex-hedge fund analyst at ING Investment Management, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy and insider trading as part of a federal crackdown on the practice. The couple, Jennifer Wang, 31, and Ruben Chen, 34, of Englishtown, N.J., face from 30 months to 37 months in prison and fines of as much as $5 million at their Dec. 7 sentencings. They made more than $600,000 through three illegal trades starting in 2005, authorities said.

Federal regulators have given media mogul Barry Diller conditional approval to take control of television company Silver King Communications. . . . Morgan Stanley Group has hired veteran investment banker Robert Scully from rival Lehman Bros. Holdings.

Morgan Stanley Group Inc.: The New York-based international securities firm's net income dropped to $81.1 million for the quarter ending March 31, compared to $98.6 million in the 1988 period. Revenue totaled $534.1 million, up from $566 million. The firm said its performance was "strong," despite what it called "difficult conditions" in the debt markets.

Burlington Industries said Thursday that it has agreed to go private in a $2.4-billion leveraged buyout that is aimed at saving Burlington from a hostile takeover. Burlington, the nation's largest manufacturer of textiles, said the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York is leading a group of investors that has agreed to purchase the company. However, Burlington would continue to be managed by its current top officers, including Frank S. Greenberg, chairman and chief executive.

Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive Philip J. Purcell succumbed Monday to a months-long effort to oust him, saying he would step down to prevent more damage to the venerable investment bank. Purcell has been locked in a bruising showdown with former Morgan executives who blame him for the company's lackluster earnings and weak stock price. The unusually public tussle riveted Wall Street but rattled the company as a wave of high-level executives defected to competitors.

Morgan Stanley and Apax Partners Worldwide agreed to purchase Chicago-based Hub International Ltd. for $1.8 billion in the second buyout of a U.S. insurance brokerage in six weeks. Hub said shareholders would receive $40 a share in cash, 16% more than the closing price on Feb. 23. The transaction, which includes $145 million of debt, comes after Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s buyout unit said Jan. 16 it agreed to acquire USI Holdings Corp., the ninth-largest broker, for about $1.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked Morgan Stanley Chief Executive John Mack to testify regarding what role he may have played in an insider trading case involving hedge fund Pequot Capital, Morgan Stanley said Friday. A former SEC investigator has said he was fired after pursuing evidence that Mack allegedly had tipped off Pequot, where Mack briefly served as chairman, about a pending merger. Mack has denied any wrongdoing, as has Pequot.

Morgan Stanley on Wednesday said it would keep its Discover credit card unit, resisting pressure from shareholders to sell it. The company did say it would shed an aircraft leasing unit hurt by the weakened airline industry. The decisions marked the first major strategic steps by John Mack, whom Morgan Stanley brought back seven weeks ago to replace Philip Purcell as chairman and chief executive.

Morgan Stanley, the world's largest securities firm, on Tuesday named Merrill Lynch & Co.'s James Gorman to run its retail brokerage, a business whose slumping profit spurred the firm to begin cutting 1,000 jobs earlier this month. Gorman, 47, starts in February, replacing John Schaefer, 53, who will leave Morgan Stanley by the end of the year. Gorman will join Morgan Stanley's management committee and report to acting President Zoe Cruz, the firm said.

The NASD said Tuesday that it had fined an arm of investment firm Morgan Stanley $1.5 million and ordered the firm to pay more than $4.6 million in restitution for failing to adequately supervise its fee-based brokerage business. More than 3,500 Morgan Stanley DW Inc. customers will be receiving restitution, said the NASD, formerly the National Assn. of Securities Dealers. Fee-based brokerage accounts are an alternative to traditional commission-based accounts.

Former Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive Philip J. Purcell will receive $43.9 million in bonus money and $250,000 a year for life, plus health benefits and office help, as part of his severance from the company he led for eight years. Purcell, 61, will receive half his bonus money next Jan. 15 and the rest one year later. The bonus will be adjusted by a percentage roughly equal to Morgan Stanley's annual pretax earnings growth.

Morgan Stanley Group downgraded Qwest Communications International Inc. on Wednesday and questioned the voice and data services company's accounting practices and future earnings power--allegations that Qwest called "inaccurate and misleading." Qwest also reaffirmed its growth targets through 2005. Morgan Stanley analyst Simon Flannery downgraded Qwest to "neutral" from "outperform," and raised questions about how the company accounted for last year's acquisition of US West Communications Inc.

The consolidation wave in the money management business swelled again Monday, with Wall Street giants Morgan Stanley Group and Merrill Lynch & Co. snapping up two smaller firms, and mutual fund legend Michael Price rumored to be on the verge of selling his firm. In the day's biggest deal, Morgan Stanley said it will buy Van Kampen American Capital Inc., a major mutual fund company, for $745 million plus assumption of debt.

Profit at Wall Street brokerage firm Morgan Stanley fell 24% in its fiscal second quarter because of difficult market conditions and higher legal expenses in connection with high-profile lawsuits, the company said Wednesday. Morgan Stanley also said it was still reviewing a potential spinoff of its Discover Financial Services credit card division -- a low-margin business that nonetheless provides Morgan Stanley with strong cash flow. Shares of Morgan Stanley fell 45 cents to $50.52.

Rebel Morgan Stanley shareholders who forced the retirement of Chief Executive Philip J. Purcell may now set their sights on board members who supported him, a spokesman for the group said Thursday, signaling a battle for leadership change may not be over. "We have not ruled out a proxy fight," said Andrew Merrill, a spokesman for eight former Morgan Stanley executives and investors, whose campaign to oust Purcell succeeded.