Americas: Corporate Finance

Amazon.com : $325 million senior discount bonds

"…When Amazon announced plans to do the first junk bond deal ever for an Internet company, it turned to Morgan Stanley [Dean Witter] as sole manager, despite the fact that the firm's merchant banking arm once owned Barnes & Noble. Why? Credit the power of research. Explains Amazon chief financial officer Joy Covey, 'Mary Meeker, [Morgan Stanley's] equity analyst, has a long history with Amazon, and [Morgan Stanley] has a high-quality, high-yield market presence.'"

Conoco: $4.4 billion IPO

"DuPont's Big Sell of Conoco, a record-size IPO, outfoxed a bearish market. Conoco's road crew assured investors that despite the poor recent performance of oil stocks, the international energy company had outperformed its peers and cut costs dramatically…. The pitch worked. Bowing to demand, lead underwriter Morgan Stanley upped the deal size by 27 percent, bringing 191 million shares to market on October 21 at $23, the high end of the expected price range, raising $4.4 billion for Conoco in the largest IPO ever of a U.S. company."

Federal National Mortgage Association: $42 billion benchmark notes

Telecommincacoes Brasileiras: Brazilian government's sale of 51.79% of common voting shares (equivalent to 19.26 percent of total capital) in Telebras for $19 million

"Burned by the Asian crisis, investors had all but abandoned developing countries, and Latin American market activity, which had reached record levels in early 1997, slowed to a trickle. Looking for a sign that Latin America was viable, analysts and bankers saw Telebrás as the year's bellwether transaction. And it didn't disappoint, with its 12 holding companies auctioned off to buyers ranging from Portugal Telecom to MCI Communications Corp., for an expectations-busting $19 billion."

Americas: Public Finance

Long Island Power Authority: $4.76 billion general revenue bonds

Americas: Real Estate

Simon DeBartolo Group and Corporate Property Investors: $5.8 billion acquisition

Advised by Morgan Stanley in the "largest regional mall properties acquisition ever," Corporate Property Investors, "a REIT that was privately owned by institutions, including the AT&T Corp. pension fund, Kuwait Investment Authority and Dutch pension fund PGGM, accepted Simon's bid even though another offer was higher. Why? CPI's investors wanted in on Simon's business, and the merger pact gave them $179 per share — $90 in cash, $70 in Simon common shares and $19 in Simon convertible preferred."

Americas: Derivatives

Nabisco Holding Corp.: $1 billion in reset put securities

"Nabisco's was not the first Reps deal, but it was the first of such a large scale -- the deal that opened the market. 'It's the biggest deal ever done in the synthetic-put-bond market,' says William White, managing director of debt capital markets at [Morgan Stanley]. 'It opened a slew of activity.'"

International: Corporate Finance/Equities

Equant: $811 million IPO

"The IPO was the largest listing by any private company in France for 1998. Demand was such that global coordinators Morgan Stanley and Salomon Smith Barney increased the initial price range by 23 percent. The bankers then pitched the deal at Ff161.7 ($29) per share, at the top end of the revised range. Since then, the shares have held up well, despite difficult market conditions, trading at almost double the issue price (Ff322) at the end of 1998."

International: Asia Asset Sales

Daikyo: $277 million book value

Morgan Stanley "overcame [market] obstacles when it bought, for an undisclosed sum, 1,200 condominium units in 50 buildings around Japan from ailing Daikyo, the country's largest condominium developer. To finance the purchase, [Morgan Stanley] arranged a nonrecourse loan from J.P. Morgan, a first for Japan… [and] a key to breaking the logjam in Japan's real estate market because [nonrecourse loans] provide a way for banks to finance property deals without worrying about the credit rating of the borrower."