Morgan Stanley has said net revenues for its Global Wealth Management Group rose to $12.6 billion in 2010 from $9.4 billion a year ago. The increase primarily reflected incremental net revenues following the closing of the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture with Citigroup, the bank said.

Income after the non-controlling interest allocation to Citigroup and before taxes was $855 million, Morgan Stanley said yesterday.

Pre-tax income was $1.2 billion compared with $559 million in 2009. Comparisons of current year results with prior periods were affected by the results of MSSB, which closed on May 31, 2009.

Compensation expenses of $7.8 billion increased from $6.1 billion a year ago due mainly to the inclusion of MSSB for the full year.

Total client assets were $1.7 trillion at year-end. Client assets in fee-based accounts were $470 billion and represented 28 per cent of total client assets. Net new assets for the year were $22.9 billion.

The 18,043 global financial advisors at year-end achieved average annualized revenue of $742,000 and total client assets for each averaged $93 million.

In the fourth quarter GWM’s net revenues were $3.4 billion compared with $3.1 billion a year ago and primarily reflected higher net interest and commission revenues. Net new assets for the quarter were $14.1 billion.

Overall the bank’s net income almost doubled. Morgan Stanley reported net income of $867 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $460 million in the year-earlier period.