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What has to happen in Wealth Management

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MS forward model
Horizon
Consolidated fair value $216.19 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $12.94B 45% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $53.05B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

Ted Pick's own published scorecard, taken literally. The 4Q25 Strategic Update names four Firmwide Goals - ROTCE 20%, Wealth Management pre-tax margin 30%, client assets $10 trillion-plus and a 70% efficiency ratio. Three were beaten in the basis quarter (26.6% ROTCE, 30.5% Wealth margin, 65% efficiency) and the fourth was reached ($8,084B of Wealth client assets plus $2,004B of Investment Management AUM). This case treats those four numbers as FLOORS rather than targets - which is precisely what management declined to confirm when it left the 30% Wealth benchmark unchanged after a 30.5% print. It is named after the CEO because the framing is his, not the model's. Result: $216.19 a share, +0.62%, an implied 4.065x tangible book - which is the tape, at 4.0402x. What it does NOT achieve is a defence of that multiple on through-cycle returns: on the company's own published 2021-2025 average ROTCE of 17.6% the same identity justifies 2.473x, $131.50, 38.8% lower.

Wealth Management

Basis quarter$8.86B
Final quarter$12.94B
Implied CAGR+8%
Final revenue mix45%

Fees on advised assets, transactional revenue, and net interest on $436B of deposits and $195.7B of bank loans. $8,856M of net revenues in the basis quarter - 41.5% of the firm before eliminations - at a 30.45% pre-tax margin, the first time the segment has printed above the company's published 30% goal in two consecutive quarters. Total client assets reached $8,084B and, with Investment Management's $2,004B, crossed the $10 trillion mark the company set as a firmwide goal. The revenue mix is disclosed (asset management $5,261M, transactional $1,167M, net interest $2,254M, other $174M) but pre-tax income is published only for the segment as a whole, so the line is projected as sequential growth and is NOT split.

Last four quarters
2025 Q3 $8.23B Reported
2025 Q4 $8.43B Reported
2026 Q1 $8.52B Reported
2026 Q2 $8.86B Reported
Asset management fees on fee-based client assetsTransactional (investment banking, trading, commissions and fees)Net interest on sweep deposits and bank lendingOther
Sequential growth +2.0%/qtr decaying toward +1.5% 2.0% is below the 3.41% trailing-eight mean; just over half the record $148.1B of net new assets was stock-plan IPO flow.
Wealth Management

Latest: $12.94B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2023Q1 $6.56B
2023Q2 $6.66B
2023Q3 $6.40B
2023Q4 $6.64B
2024Q1 $6.88B
2024Q2 $6.79B
2024Q3 $7.27B
2024Q4 $7.48B
2025Q1 $7.33B
2025Q2 $7.76B
2025Q3 $8.23B
2025Q4 $8.43B
2026Q1 $8.52B
2026Q2 $8.86B
2026Q3E $9.06B
2026Q4E $9.25B
2027Q1E $9.45B
2027Q2E $9.64B
2027Q3E $9.84B
2027Q4E $10.03B
2028Q1E $10.23B
2028Q2E $10.42B
2028Q3E $10.62B
2028Q4E $10.82B
2029Q1E $11.02B
2029Q2E $11.22B
2029Q3E $11.43B
2029Q4E $11.63B
2030Q1E $11.84B
2030Q2E $12.06B
2030Q3E $12.27B
2030Q4E $12.49B
2031Q1E $12.71B
2031Q2E $12.94B

Assumptions & reasoning

  • The 30.45% margin is PRE-TAX INCOME margin - $2,697M on $8,856M - net of $6,132M of segment non-interest expenses AND of the segment's own $27M provision. The release rounds the same figure to 30.5%.
  • The 30.0% terminal margin is DISCLOSED, not assumed: 'WM Pre-Tax Margin 30%' is one of the four Firmwide Goals Morgan Stanley published on its own 4Q25 Strategic Update. The model holds the company's published goal rather than extrapolating the 30.45% basis print or the 29.68% last-six-quarter blend, so the glide closes a 45-basis-point gap and barely bites.
  • WHY NOT A SUBSCRIPTION DRIVER, answered explicitly. The disclosure is the best in the firm and the derived fee rate is remarkably stable: asset management revenue over average fee-based client assets is 72.4bp annualised in the basis quarter ($5,261M / $2,907B), 73.3bp in 2026 Q1 and 73.1bp in 2025 Q2 - a nine-basis-point band over five quarters. That prices asset management. It does not price the segment: asset management is 59.41% of net revenues and the other 40.6% (transactional $1,167M, net interest $2,254M, other $174M) turns on client activity and the rate curve, which the company does not project.
  • Splitting the fee business from the spread business would require a pre-tax margin for each, and Morgan Stanley publishes pre-tax income ONLY at segment level. Goldman's Asset & Wealth Management failed the same test at 73% fee coverage; Morgan Stanley's coverage is lower. The fee rate and net new assets are recorded as the evidence the growth rate is anchored on, not as the driver.
  • ASEASONAL by the gate itself. Centred four-quarter factors are [0.9950, 0.9865, 1.0059, 1.0127], a 2.6-point band, and the worst window spread of 0.0488 is NEARLY DOUBLE the whole 0.0262 signal - 0.54:1. That is noise on a fee-and-spread annuity, so no factors are carried.
  • ON THE RECORD FLOWS: $148.1B of net new assets is 2.0% of opening client assets in a single quarter and 150% above a year earlier, but the release says 'just over half represented inflows related to IPOs of certain clients in our Workplace channel.' Roughly $74B of it is a function of a hot issuance window rather than of advisor recruiting, which is why the opening growth rate is set below the trailing mean.
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