Sure. We have about 150 professionals dedicated to providing private capital predominantly to middle-market companies. Our investments range from minority equity stakes in growth businesses to majority control of more mature companies. In general, we look to make investments in high-quality businesses that are leading players in their industries and have significant growth potential. We like to see strong and defensible margins, high returns on equity and we especially like to work with founders and management teams that are looking to grow to the next level of size and sophistication. All of our strategies are supported by investment teams with decades of experience and deep expertise within their respective areas. We always look to leverage the broader Morgan Stanley franchise to add additional value to our investments.

Being part of one of the best global investment banks in the world. We can sit down with any company interested in receiving capital from us, ask “what are your needs?” and then access not just the expertise of our own professionals across investment management, but also that of Morgan Stanley's bankers, analysts and approximately 56,000 employees.

I think it comes down to leveraging our firm's network to source and enhance business operations and our access to unparalleled financial expertise. Morgan Stanley's global network not only allows us to source transactions, but it also provides our investment teams with opportunities to significantly enhance the operational and financial performance of our portfolio companies. We can connect executives to other industry leaders, new customers or suppliers and identify and recruit new managers. For example, let’s say we make an investment in a consumer products company. We can leverage our team in China to make introductions and potentially expand distribution channels. 

That we value our relationships and reputation above everything else. We’ll do whatever we can to help any company that we work with, even if we do not take a majority stake in the business.  Recently, the CEO and founder of a company in which we made a credit investment a few years earlier got in touch with us and asked us if we could help him work out the company’s future strategy. We looped in one of our senior investment bankers who specializes in the CEO’s industry as well as someone from one of our private equity teams and started a dialogue to help him strategize.  We were ultimately able to provide several interesting ideas and connect him with other companies to discuss partnerships and potential acquisitions. We don’t own this company, and he’s not likely to need any more credit from our team, nor would he be an investment banking client, but this is the kind of thing everyone does at Morgan Stanley—we constantly draw on each other’s expertise to assist our clients and partners.