For its industry-leading role in the European real-estate investment market, Morgan Stanley earned two of the top 2007 Global Private Equity Real Estate Awards recently. The awards, administered by PERE, a real estate magazine, polled thousand of readers to nominate deserving people and firms across a range of global categories. More than 20,000 responded.

Morgan Stanley won European M&A Advisor of the Year and European Industry Figure of the Year.

"Powerhouse Morgan Stanley topped rankings last year as an advisor to European real estate mergers and acquisitions," the editors wrote. "It closed just over $80 billion of transactions, not just eclipsing, but trouncing the competition." The number-two advisor tallied just north of $44bn.

The citation referenced not only Europe's biggest real-estate deal of the year, but also to date as well: Unibail of France's of the Netherlands Rodamco Europe.

In addition to the two awards, Morgan Stanley Real Estate were runners-up in:

• North American Industry Figure of the Year
• North American Firm of the Year
• European Firm of the Year
• Asian Industry Figure of the Year — Zain Fancy