Ask a banker in Asia about the $25,000 fee that Morgan Stanley accepted for leading an $800m dairy deal in Vietnam, and eyebrows are raised. One wag even joked that he knew bankers who paid more for their suits. But, quickly, the surprise and the quips are replaced by another question: what else did Morgan Stanley receive to make the deal worth it?
A payday of $25,000 is a low absolute number by any standards for a bank that just collected $120m for advising on another deal: Monsanto’s takeover by Bayer. But it is hardly the lowest of lowballs in a region where tales abound of Indian flotations that paid a single rupee and Chinese tycoons who only grudgingly pay up, if at all.
Morgan Stanley declined to comment on its reasons for accepting such a relatively small fee for leading the sale of a 9 per cent stake in Vinamilk, worth $830m. A western rival who was also prepared to do the deal for that fee said the banks involved would make additional money from brokerage charges on the sale of the shares.