Morgan Stanley's results suggest it was a bad time to leak that deal list

14 October 2026

3 minute read

How are things going for the APAC head of financial sponsors banking at Morgan Stanley who Bloomberg reported last month accidentally emailed a potential list of deals and price sensitive information to clients? Maybe not the best. Today's Q3 Morgan Stanley results suggest the deal list was flashed at an unfortunate time.

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Globally, Morgan Stanley's equity capital markets (ECM) bankers are not having a great year. Compared to other US banks that have reported so far, their revenues have increased by less in percentage terms. In the third quarter, Morgan Stanley's ECM revenues actually fell.

Morgan Stanley's ECM bankers fall behind

Year-on-year change in equity capital markets (ECM) revenues, Q3 2026 and first nine months of 2026

■ Q3 2026■ First nine months 2026

Goldman Sachs

Q3 +43%

9M +73%

JPMorgan

Q3 +7%

9M +42%

Morgan Stanley

Q3 -19%

9M +20%

Citi

Q3 +77%

9M +86%

Bank of America

Q3 +9%

9M +33%

Equity underwriting revenues. JPMorgan figures are for its Commercial & Investment Bank. Citi figures are investment banking revenues. Bank of America figures are total corporation equity issuance fees. Morgan Stanley's nine-month figure includes fees from the SpaceX IPO in Q2. Source: company Q3 2026 earnings releases and financial supplements.

It's not totally clear why the Q3 ECM fall occurred and we are by no means suggesting that the leak was to blame. We are, however, observing that in an environment where you're lagging rivals, accidentally releasing a list of potential deals is not ideal. Any impact of the leak is likely to be felt in the future, not in Q3.

Morgan Stanley itself blamed the poor Q3 performance of its ECM bankers on "lower IPOs and blocks." Various IPOs have been postponed or cancelled, including those of Firmus and Holtec, which were both cancelled in recent weeks, and Oura and Bamboo Insurance, which were postponed. However, Goldman and JPMorgan were on many of the same deals and don't seem to have suffered to the same extent.

The head of APAC financial sponsors isn't an ECM banker, but the leaked list contained information on IPOs and block trades as well as M&A deals. Irrespective of the leak, the poor Q3 probably doesn't bode well for Morgan Stanley ECM bankers' bonuses. Earlier this year, Morgan Stanley bankers earned an estimated $100m from their work on the SpaceX IPO, but $100m is less than a month's revenue for the team and might be viewed less warmly in light of the comparatively poor performance overall.

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