Pre-tax income from continuing operations at the wealth management arm of Morgan Stanley more than doubled in the first three months of this year to $278 million, compared with $119 million a year ago, the US firm said today. Meanwhile, the overall group swung back into the black after suffering a loss last year.

Morgan Stanley said comparisons of its latest quarterly figures with the same period a year before have been affected by the joint venture deal with Citigroup to create the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney wealth management business. Income after the non-controlling interest allocation to Citigroup and before taxes was $163 million.

Net revenues in Global Wealth Management were $3.1 billion, compared to $1.3 billion a year ago. The increase primarily reflected incremental net revenues following the closing of the MSSB transaction, the firm said in a statement.  

Compensation expenses of $2.0 billion increased from $844 million a year ago due to the inclusion of MSSB, it said. The results for this quarter included compensation and non-compensation costs of approximately $40 million and $60 million, respectively, related to the MSSB integration.

Total client assets were $1.6 trillion at the end of March. Client assets in fee-based accounts were $413 billion and accounted for 26 per cent of total client assets. Net new assets for the quarter were $5.8 billion.

A total of 18,140 global representatives worked at the firm at the end of March, chalking up average annualized revenue per global rep of $685,000 and total client assets per rep of $88 million.

For the entire Morgan Stanley group, the firm logged income of $1.8 billion, or $1.03 per diluted share, from continuing operations, compared with a loss of $17 million, or $0.41 per diluted share, for the same period a year ago. Net revenues were $9.1 billion for the current quarter, compared with $2.9 billion a year ago.

Asset management reported net revenues of $653 million, compared with $22 million a year ago, the firm said. Morgan Stanley's Tier 1 capital ratio, under Basel I, was around 15.0 per cent, it added.