Morgan Stanley Courts Athletes, Singers With New Wealth Unit

Morgan Stanley ( MS), whose brokerage helps manage more than $2 trillion of client assets, started a new unit that focuses on professional athletes and entertainers.

 

The division has 69 advisers and will add a few more within the next year, Drew Hawkins, head of the Global Sports & Entertainment group, said today in a phone interview. Many of them already had been working with celebrities, and brokers took a three-day training program on how to cater to those clients, he said.

Athlete pay has surged in recent years, with Giancarlo Stanton, a Miami Marlins outfielder, poised to sign a $325 million contract over 13 years, a Major League Baseball record, according to CBSSports.com. Kevin Durant, the National Basketball League’s reigning most-valuable player, re-signed as a Nike Inc. endorser with a contract worth $300 million over 10 years, Bloomberg News reported in September.

“The size of these contracts and the amount these individuals are earning tends to increase on a daily basis,” Hawkins said. “Celebrities and entertainers and those connected with those industries in a lot of cases make a lot of money, but they also have a lot of unique circumstances.”