DBRS Assigns Rating of AAA to Morgan Stanley’s FDIC Guaranteed Issuance

DBRS has today assigned a rating of AAA to the $350 million floating rate senior notes (the Notes), due March 4, 2011, issued by Morgan Stanley. The Notes are issued pursuant to the Prospectus, dated January 25, 2006; the Senior Debt Indenture, dated November 1, 2004; and the Prospectus Supplement, dated December 1, 2008. The AAA rating is based on the explicit guarantee provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP), which is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Under the TLGP, the FDIC guarantees payment of qualifying debt issued by eligible U.S. bank holding companies, such as Morgan Stanley.

The AAA rating reflects DBRS’s opinion as to the guarantor’s ability to honor the guarantee as determined by DBRS’s internal assessment of the sovereign. All other debt ratings, including Morgan Stanley’s AA (low) Issuer & Senior Debt rating, remain at their current levels. The trend on all long-term non-guaranteed ratings remains Negative; the trend was changed to Negative on September 17, 2008.

Notes:
All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

The applicable methodology is Rating Banks and Bank Holding Companies Operating in the United States, which can be found on our website under Methodologies.

This is a Corporate (Financial Institutions) rating.