"We have a game plan for it," Gorman said, adding that Morgan Stanley's team "has worked on a lot of ideas (and) the opportunities are clearly there."
Gorman — who confirmed that he's poised to pass the leadership baton for Morgan Stanley to a successor over the coming year — didn't provide further specifics.
Speaking broadly, however, he noted that positive developments now in India, Japan and the Middle East — where the company opened an Abu Dhabi office a few months earlier — are offsetting to some extent the challenges facing China's economy.
A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman declined to offer further details.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, a previous acquisition — Parametric Portfolio Associates, which came to Morgan Stanley with the March 2021 acquisition of Parametric's parent company, Eaton Vance — proved a bright spot in an otherwise challenging period for the firm's asset management business.
MSIM's saw $6.8 billion in long-term net outflows for the quarter, including $5.5 billion in active equities, in line — the company noted — with industry trends.
But inflows for Parametric's customized index offerings for retail investors partially cushioned that decline. Specifics were not provided.
Separately, Parametric's institutional overlay offerings likewise contributed to MSIM's net liquidity and overlay services inflows of $5.7 billion, which left the money manager's total net outflows at $1.1 billion, vs. net inflows of $10.8 billion for the prior quarter and net outflows of $34.4 billion for the year earlier quarter.
MSIM's $1.39 trillion in AUM as of Sept. 30 was down 0.2% from the end of the prior quarter but up 8.5% from the year before.
