Facebook IPO Mess Costs Morgan Stanley $5 Million

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By Paul Ausick Updated Published
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courtesy of Morgan Stanley
The commonwealth of Massachusetts has fined investment bank Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) $5 million for “improper influence” related to its dealing with research analysts prior to the March IPO of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB).

The ruling stems from a notice sent by Facebook’s CFO to Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter of the offering, on the first day of Facebook’s roadshow leading up to the IPO in which the company CFO he was no longer confident in the revenue guidance he had offered to analysts. The filing was later amended, but not before Facebook’s CFO had made numerous phone calls to some analysts conveying information that was not available in the existing filing.

Massachusetts has already fined Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) $2 million for supervision failures when the bank’s leading Internet analyst broke the rules related to disclosures about Facebook and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).

Shares of Morgan Stanley are up about 0.2% in after-hours trading today, at $18.56 in a 52-week range of $12.26 to $21.19.

Paul Ausick

Photo of Paul Ausick
About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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