Entering 2024, the Morgan Stanley investment banking team in Asia was very much aware that many private equity sponsors had failed to exit from their portfolio companies the previous year amid volatile market conditions. So, when a window emerged to revive the sponsor-driven exit market, the US bank was at the forefront, pushing out M&A deals.
For instance, it was a lead financial adviser to Blackstone on its $16.1 billion-equivalent acquisition of Australian data centre specialist AirTrunk, and advised Nord Anglia Education on its $14.5 billion sale by Baring Private Equity Asia to a consortium comprising EQT, Neuberger Berman Private Markets, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Corporación Financiera Alba and Dubai Holding Investments.
Morgan Stanley also advised a consortium led by Warburg Pincus on its $9.4 billion take-private proposal for ESR Group, worked on a $2.8 billion tender offer by Hillhouse to acquire Samty Holdings, and was lead financial adviser to GLP Capital Partners for its acquisition by Ares Management.
In Japan, Morgan Stanley has been advising Seven & I Holdings, a retail company known for its 7-Eleven store chain, which has been a target of a takeover by Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard. Conversations between the two were still ongoing as of June 2025, with a deal – if it goes ahead – set to be worth close to $59 billion.
There’s more where that came from, given hundreds of billions of sponsor investments made in recent years need to be exited. A chunk of that will likely have Morgan Stanley in the advisory seat.
“Our M&A wallet share is consistently high because we have a leading sponsors M&A platform, which provides reliably profitable business,” says Richard Wong, Asia Pacific M&A head at Morgan Stanley. “We also do large cross-border deals that help us from a wallet perspective and this momentum will continue.”
The bank has positioned itself to capture some of the growing Middle Eastern investment flows into Asia
Morgan Stanely was third in the Asia Pacific ex-Japan M&A revenue by bank league table, earning $167 million for a 7.1% market share in 2024, Dealogic data shows. For Asia ex-Japan M&A revenues, it was second, while it topped the revenue tables for China and Japan.
The bank has also positioned itself to capture some of the growing Middle Eastern investment flows into Asia.
Morgan Stanley was sole financial adviser to Alat, a subsidiary of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, for its $2 billion subscription to a convertible bond from Lenovo. Although Middle Eastern funds have turned cautious this year amid growing geopolitical tensions, the belief is their interest in cross-border investments into Asia will likely revive once stability returns.
Yet another opportunity is in the general partner (GP) space. Consolidation among GPs in the region is expected to pick up – both domestic ones and global ones – with Morgan Stanley setting its sights on capturing some of those deals. Watch this space for more.
