ETrade still a sweet fit for Morgan Stanley: Gorman

Morgan Stanley's deal to acquire ETrade Financial Corp. for $13 billion in stock still looks good today despite the COVID-19 crisis and market collapse that have taken place since it was announced last year, according to James Gorman, CEO and chairman of Morgan Stanley.

The deal adds to the wirehouse's wealth management platform, he said. "The ETrade folks have handled this brilliantly," Gorman said during an interview Wednesday afternoon on the business news channel CNBC. "They’ve had very little disruption to their platform."

Morgan Stanley won U.S. antitrust approval for its $13 billion acquisition of discount brokerage ETrade, according to Bloomberg News.

"And this is exactly the kind of reasons why we wanted to buy this business," he said. "This gives us world class technology capability, particularly as people now have learned to deal [with working] much more remotely. It will augment what we are doing with our financial advisers."

The deal to acquire ETrade "provides more balance to our business model," Gorman said. "It’s more wealth management revenues, it’s more stability, it’s less volatile than the core markets businesses."

Gorman also said that a global recession was inevitable, and that the question was when and how well the economy will rebound.