An article in Bloomberg states Morgan Stanley (MS) won’t sacrifice its $181 billion pool of cash, government debt and other liquid assets to meet proposed U.S. rules on how much capital it holds against total assets.
Risk management tied to liquidity is “sacrosanct” and won’t be compromised to boost the New York-based firm’s holding-company leverage ratio, which at 4.2 percent trails the proposed 5 percent minimum, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said today on a conference call with fixed-income investors. Morgan Stanley has plans to meet the leverage requirement by 2015, ahead of the proposed deadline of 2018, she said.