E-Trade stockholders approve $13B acquisition by Morgan Stanley

Transaction first announced in February, expected to close Q4

Published July 20, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Arlington-based online brokerage E-Trade Financial Corp. announced that on Monday more than 99% of its stockholders approved its $13 billion acquisition by Morgan Stanley, which was first announced in February.

E-Trade stockholders will receive 1.0432 Morgan Stanley shares for each of their E-Trade shares as a result of the acquisition.

The deal is expected to close during the fourth quarter this year, according to a Morgan Stanley statement. Voting results will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and completion is subject to regulatory approvals.

In February, the companies indicated that the deal would add approximately $56 billion of low-cost deposits and Morgan Stanley’s wealth and investment management services will contribute to 57% of the firm’s pre-tax profits — more than double what it was a decade ago. Morgan Stanley will also be able to capture up to $7.3 trillion of combined customer assets to drive revenue.

E-Trade is based in Arlington, but provides online banking service across the nation. It has more than 5.2 million client accounts and more than $360 billion in retail client assets. Morgan Stanley has 3 million accounts and more than $2.7 trillion in client assets.

E-Trade Bank, a subsidiary of E-Trade Financial Corp. (an online trading platform) had the second-highest amount of deposits among Virginia banks, with $40.7 billion in deposits for fiscal year 2018 (behind only Capital One Bank USA).