Morgan Stanley Sees "Gentle Recovery" In M&A (MS), (GS)

According to Wall Street firms like Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Sanford C. Bernstein, the mergers and acquisitions market is likely to be tepid in 2010. Bloomberg quoted Morgan Stanley’s head of European M&A, Dieter Turowski as saying, “If you look at previous M&A cycles, the first year after the trough is always one of gentle recovery before things pick up."

It is estimated that Wall Street earned $17.5 billion in M&A advisory fees this year, which is the lowest total since 2005. Bernstein's Brad Hintz does not believe that overall M&A will reach the torrid pace of 2007 for at least 4 years. This year, Morgan Stanley (MS) beat out Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) as the largest merger adviser for the first time since 2000. Morgan Stanley worked on around 268 takeovers worth approximately $531 billion combined, compared with 254 deals by Goldman (GS) valued at $478 billion.