In response to the financial crisis, the storied investment banking firm Morgan Stanley converted into a bank holding company in September 2008 to gain access to the Federal Reserve Bank Discount Window.[1] The bank also received $10 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which it repaid in June 2009.[2]

Morgan Stanley paid $14.4 billion in 2009 compensation and benefits, up from $12.3 billion in the previous fiscal year. Total compensation expenses equaled 62 percent of Morgan Stanley’s net revenues for 2009, up from about 50 percent of its revenues in the previous year.[3] After shareholders complained, Morgan Stanley’s new president and chief executive officer, James Gorman, pledged to lower the company’s compensation levels.[4]

Eventually, Morgan Stanley’s highest-paid executive in 2009 was not its retiring CEO John Mack or its new CEO James Gorman, but Walid Chammah, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley International, who received more than $10 million. Gorman received $6.5 million in total pay in 2009, before taking over as CEO on Jan. 1, 2010.[5]

Morgan Stanley boosted its 2009 lobbying expenses to $2.88 million, a 15 percent increase from the $2.5 million it spent on lobbying the previous year.[6] The issues that the bank lobbied on in 2009 include the federal government’s financial market assistance, financial market systemic risk, derivatives, financial regulatory restructuring and mortgage industry reforms.[7]

Gorman was formerly a member of the board of directors of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), and served as its board chairman in 2006.[8] Morgan Stanley and two of its subsidiaries are also SIFMA members. SIFMA has expressed concern about the creation of a consumer financial protection agency.[9] The industry trade group also has opposed the taxation of securities transactions.[10]

Gorman is also a member of the Business Roundtable. The Business Roundtable, which comprises of CEOs of blue-chip companies, opposes including corporate governance reform as part of any financial regulation legislation.[11]