Ranked number one as underwriter of sovereign bond deals over the past 12 months, Morgan Stanley succeeds partly through dominating emerging markets fixed income. EU governments have tapped the markets less over the past year, although when they have Morgan Stanley has been prominent, leading issues from Spain, Austria and Italy.
Italy's February issue was the largest global yen issue for a sovereign at ¥100 billion. Mike Weston, head of origination, cites Morgan Stanley's ability to work across different currencies as central to its large volume of mandates: "To have sound business you can't just say 'I'm going to do euros', or 'I'm going to do dollars'. You've got to know what's going on in the yen market, and got to understand the sterling market. And that's one thing we pride ourselves on in terms of being very global in our advice."
As well as global breadth, Morgan Stanley views comprehensive associated services to be crucial when attracting sovereign mandates. As part of this strategy, the company hired Louis de Montpellier in June as an executive director in its European debt capital markets team.
"My brief," de Montpellier says "is to co-ordinate across divisions in the firm, and try to look at our coverage of sovereigns from different angles: from the perspective of asset management or budget management, for example.