Morgan Stanley is selling the RIA custody business of E-Trade to Axos Clearing for $55 million in cash.
Axos Financial, the parent firm of Axos Clearing, says the deal includes some 200 RIA clients with about $23 billion in assets and should close in the third quarter of 2021.
"When E*Trade and Morgan Stanley joined forces [in 2020], establishing a referral program between E*Trade customers and our financial advisors was a key area of focus," Morgan Stanley said in a statement Tuesday. "This shift created a natural inflection point to evaluate the RIA custody business we inherited, and ultimately we found a strategic buyer in Axos Financial.
Morgan Stanley completed its $13 billion purchase of E-Trade Financial on Oct. 2, 2020. The bank's wealth unit had assets of $2.85 trillion as of Sept. 30, 2020. It reported wealth assets of $4.0 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2020, with most (but not all) of the fourth quarter's $1.15 trillion asset increase tied to its purchase of the brokerage firm.
"We are extremely excited to announce the [E*Trade Advisor Services] acquisition," said Axos Financial President and CEO Gregory Garrabrants, in a statement. "We intend to leverage EAS' turnkey technology platform and Axos Clearing's capabilities to expand the service offerings to independent registered investment advisors and turnkey asset management program managers."
Garrabrants also said the transaction includes some $1.2 billion of client cash deposits.
"The RIA custody business is an integral part of our strategic plan, and adding a team of experts with decades of experience and relationships with the RIA community is something we highly value," he added. We look forward to investing in and growing the EAS team to support their high-touch service model."
Axos Financial includes Axos Bank, which has some $14.4 billion in assets, as well as Axos Clearing and Axos Invest, which serve broker-dealers, RIA correspondents, digital investment advisory services and retail investors.
