(21 October 2010 – USA) United States investment bank Morgan Stanley has announced a US$91 million (A$94 million) third-quarter loss.The loss is a far cry from the US$498 million profit the bank boasted this time last year, blaming the sale of a core business and a drop in lending income as the main factors behind the profit drop.
For the quarter, Morgan Stanley reported a loss of seven cents per share, down from 38 cents per share in the corresponding quarter last year.
The bank’s net revenue for the quarter ending September 30 was US$6.8 billion, down from US$8.5 billion a year earlier.
The bank said in a statement that the disappointing performance reflects ‘a loss of 229 million dollars due to a write-down and related costs associated with the planned disposition of Revel Entertainment Group.
‘Although we continued to make progress across some key businesses this quarter, our results in aggregate clearly do not reflect the true potential of Morgan Stanley’s global client franchise and I am not satisfied with our overall performance,’ James Gorman, the bank’s chief executive said.