Morgan Stanley said to be trimming 600 funds from platform

Morgan Stanley is whittling down the selection of funds on its platform once again, which could slice as many as 600 products from dozens of fund families from its menu. According to industry newsletter Ignites, Morgan Stanley notified companies last week of the funds that are to be cut, and that those companies have until the end of the week to appeal. Morgan Stanley issued a statement that did not confirm the number of funds being cut. It said: "As we announced in 2017, we will continue on an ongoing basis to rationalize the number of products with the goal of offering the highest quality platform while reducing the number of redundant strategies. For the best interest of our clients, we are eliminating funds that have underperformed or have been unsuccessful in raising assets on our platform while also expanding the number of strategies that are covered by the Global Investment Manager Analysis team. We continue to offer funds from a diverse set of managers across all product categories. The firm is not targeting a specific number of mutual fund products to be eliminated but is focused on offering funds managed by well-established investment management teams across a wide variety of investment strategies, enabling our advisors to create portfolios to address the full range of investment objectives." Citywire was the first publication to report that Morgan Stanley was reducing the funds on its platform. Last year, Morgan Stanley cut some 700 funds from its platform, including all Vanguard offerings. Morgan Stanley has about 2,300 funds on its platform.