Morgan Stanley, Citi Joint Venture Hits Gridlock

Published: 14-Jun-2009

Even though the joint venture began well ahead of its schedule, integrating information technology systems is going to take some time.

New York-based banking giants, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup will have to wait for another two years to get access to each other's products of their $14 billion-a-year brokerage joint business enterprise - Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. This is mainly due to the difficulties in integrating information technology systems which are causing delay, reported Financial Times.

When the deal was announced, they said in a joint statement that “Both Morgan Stanley and Citi will access the joint venture for retail distribution and each firm’s institutional businesses will continue to execute order flow from the joint venture.”

The joint venture, which was originally planned to start in the third quarter, started well ahead of schedule earlier this month to assure brokers and clients, who are worried whether they would fit into the combined unit or not. According to the deal, Morgan Stanley will pay $2.75 billion to Citi, and own 51% in the venture.

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