Having so far failed to set European investment management alight, Morgan Stanley's asset-management business is making a new push in the institutional market.
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Investment Management has some $180 billion of institutional business under management globally but the vast majority of those funds come from US clients.
"I think it's fair to say they haven't made the splash in this market that they might have expected or hoped by this point," says one investment consultant in London. "If you measure them against other US competitors like Capital, Fidelity or JP Morgan, they would want to be achieving that sort of prominence."
Morgan Stanley's Robert Sargent, head of European business in London, concedes the point. "The majority of the money we run has been sourced from the US due to the size and sophistication of the institutional market," he says.
While Morgan Stanley has enjoyed some success in continental Europe, notably winning defined contribution business from Fiat, Sargent agrees it has yet to make a real impact in the UK. "We will be focusing on the UK market because I believe there will be a continuing acceptance of non-UK managers in the institutional market," he says.