Morgan Stanley was recently named the best overall provider of synthetic finance in Global Investor/ISF Magazine's fourth annual survey of hedge funds and institutional clients. Synthetic instruments allow clients to take delta one positions without owning the underlying securities.

Morgan Stanley won 11 of 17 possible gold medals, including "Best Overall Provider," and swept the majority of service categories. The Firm finished first in the results among hedge funds, who comprised 83 percent of the respondents, and ranked first for overall footprint. Additional No. 1 rankings were in:

·                     Global Capability

·                     Access to Emerging Markets

·                     Quality of Bespoke Solutions

·                     Ease of New Client/Fund Integration

·                     Service Over the Last 12 Months

·                     Service and Product Knowledge of Operational Client Service Provider

·                     Content Quality of Synthetic Reporting

·                     Stability of Reporting Platform

The Global Investor/ISF editors wrote that Morgan Stanley's performance was reinforced by the survey's increased response rate, which rose to 730 responses from 599 in 2010. They also commended Morgan Stanley for its "considerable improvement" since last year, when the Firm scored third in the overall best provider category.

The Global Investor/ISF article also mentioned the rise in the use of custom sector baskets and custom sectors that Morgan Stanley's equity financing products business has seen. To address this demand, Institutional Equities launched more than 75 custom sector baskets that give institutional investors the ability to gain long or short exposure to very specific segments of the U.S. equity market.