Morgan Stanley Launches Mexico Platform

Morgan Stanley has set up a sales and trading team in Mexico and will launch its full broker-dealer offering by Q4, Dario Lizzano, director of LatAm equity research for Morgan Stanley tells LatinFinance. “In terms of market share we expect to be in the top 3 in 18 months’ time,” says Lizzano. The expectation that there will be an increase in trading volume locally and clients wanting on-the-ground expertise are among reasons to open a broker dealer, says Lizzano. “Today, the average daily trading volumes of LatAm equities are taking place 50% in local markets and 50% in ADR,” says Lizzano. “We expect growth in capital market activity to be faster at a local level and in 5 years plus we expect volumes to be 60% locally and 40% ADR,” he adds. Lizzano adds that Morgan Stanley wants a presence in Mexico in particular because it believes pension funds and other institutional investors will substantially grow equity exposure. The sales and trading team is led by Miguel Machado, who relocated to Mexico in the summer. Prior to this he was a senior sales person for the LatAm desk in the London office for 5 years. Victoria Mas will be the senior sales person. She joined in July from BBVA Bancomer, where she worked in the Mexico institutional equities sales team. Javier Diaz Rivera, hired in August, will be responsible for equity trading. He was previously in the equity trading division at Merrill Lynch for 10 years, where he worked as a senior trader on the LatAm equity desk in the Mexico and New York offices. Nikolaj Lippman was hired in August and will be the Mexican country analyst. He joined from Bankinvest Asset Management, where he was chief portfolio manager for 9 years, and reports to Guilherme Paiva.