The world seemed like a very uncertain place for financial institutions in April last year. Corporate borrowers were drawing down credit lines in unprecedented volumes. Insurers faced Covid-19 losses of tens of billions of dollars, perhaps more.
The subsequent desire by some clients to bolster their capital played to Morgan Stanley’s equity capital markets strength. In those early days of the pandemic, in May 2020, a $13.3 billion secondary follow-on offering of PNC’s stake in BlackRock bolstered the lender’s balance sheet and gave PNC more firepower to take advantage of strategic acquisition opportunities. Morgan Stanley was lead-left bookrunner and stabilization agent.
The firm was also lead-left bookrunner and stabilization agent in a $1 billion follow-on offering for Renaissance Re. With the market reacting positively to Renaissance Re’s offering, UK insurer Lancashire came out a few days later with a £277 million primary accelerated bookbuild offering. Morgan Stanley was sole global coordinator on that deal.