The New York Times, February 20, 2020: Morgan Stanley to Buy E-Trade for $13 Billion
Morgan Stanley announced that it would buy E-Trade, the online discount brokerage, for about $13 billion, in the biggest takeover by a major American lender since the 2008 global financial crisis.
The deal would give Morgan Stanley — long known as one of Wall Street’s most blue-chip names, whose asset management business caters to the wealthy — a big share of the market for online trading, an additional 5.2 million customer accounts and $360 billion in assets.
Thursday’s deal highlights the increasing convergence of Wall Street and Main Street. Elite bastions of corporate finance are increasingly seeking to cater to customers with smaller pocketbooks. And online brokerages that once hoped to overthrow traditional trading houses are instead suffering from a price war that has slashed their profits.
