Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley is selling off the rest of its index and portfolio analytics business, MSCI Inc., Morgan Stanley said Monday.

The firm is pricing a secondary offering for all of its remaining 27,708,653 shares of MSCI class A common stock, at US$21.50 per share, a deal that would raise about US$595 million for Morgan Stanley. MSCI will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale.

“We are pleased to complete the separation of MSCI from Morgan Stanley, which we began in 2007,” said John Mack, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley. “As we said then, we believe this transaction will unlock value for Morgan Stanley’s shareholders as well as release capital to redeploy into our core activities including institutional securities, asset management and global wealth management.”

Morgan Stanley is serving as sole book-running manager for the offering.

IE