DealBook: Despite Improving Profits, Morgan Stanley's Path Is Uncertain

8:40 p.m. | Updated

Morgan Stanley has taken aggressive action to bolster profit. Over the last year, the Wall Street bank has cut thousands of employees, sold costly assets and retooled major businesses.

Those efforts worked. In the fourth quarter, Morgan Stanley reported earnings of $481 million, in contrast to a loss of $275 million in 2011. Profit was equally strong for the year.

But the path to future growth is less clear. While the financial firm can find other ways to cut costs, its core operations face significant challenges, from both internal and external forces. Reflecting those issues, revenue was flat last year, excluding charges related to its debt.

“They are doing everything they can to boost returns,” said Glenn Schorr, an analyst at the Japanese bank Nomura. “But given the environment and the state of their franchise, they can only do so much.”

Investors are assessing the progress versus the prospects.

After Morgan Stanley beat analysts’ expectations, the bank’s shares increased nearly 8 percent, to close at $22.38 on Friday. Morgan Stanley’s stock is up nearly 50 percent since early 2012.

“The company has been steadily chipping away at areas of investor concern, and has shown evidence of that progress,” Roger Freeman, a Barclays analyst, wrote in a note to investors.

Still, investors don’t value the investment bank as highly as some of its peers.

Morgan Stanley is trading at approximately 70 percent of its book value, a crucial financial measure that refers to the liquidation value of a company’s assets if it were forced to sell everything. Goldman, in contrast, is trading at book value.

More than four years after the financial crisis, Morgan Stanley has emerged as a much stronger, albeit smaller, bank.

After getting badly bruised during the crisis, Morgan Stanley, under the leadership of James P. Gorman, the chief executive, has moved to remake itself. He has diversified operations, emphasizing less risky businesses like wealth management.

That group was a particular bright spot. In the latest quarter, wealth management, with its 16,780 financial advisers, posted decent revenue growth. Pretax profit margin rose to 17 percent, up from 7 percent a year ago. That trumped the firm’s internal goals of 15 percent.

Investment banking, too, showed signs of strength. The group posted revenue of $1.23 billion in the fourth quarter, up 26 percent from the previous year.

The bank has also cut expenses significantly to help drive profitability. In 2012, Morgan Stanley reduced its head count by 7 percent, to 57,061 employees. It laid off 1,600 people this month.

The firm has also been bringing its pay levels down modestly. The firm’s compensation ratio, excluding certain charges, came in at roughly 51 percent, down from 57 percent a year ago.

Such efforts will most likely continue. On Friday, the bank said it might cut expenses by as much as $1.6 billion over the next two years.

Mr. Gorman called this quarter “pivotal,” on Friday. “I am confident we are on the path to increasing shareholder value that will be evident regardless of the macro environment,” he said in a statement.

Even so, the latest results underscored the growing gap between the bank and its rivals.

Revenue was flat for the quarter at Morgan Stanley, while it increased by 19 percent at Goldman Sachs during the same period. Excluding charges related to its debt, Morgan Stanley’s return on equity, a measure of profitability, was 5 percent. That compares with 10.7 percent at Goldman. To simply cover its debt expenses and other capital costs, Morgan Stanley needs to achieve a return on equity closer to 10 percent.

The firm’s problem child is the fixed income department.

Fourth-quarter revenue from fixed income sales and trading, headed by Ken deRegt, was $811 million, excluding the charges related to the firm’s debt. This was well below analysts’ forecasts. The bank was hurt by poor results in commodities trading, Mr. Gorman said in an interview on CNBC. He said it was a “terrible quarter,” citing factors like Hurricane Sandy, adding that it was one of the worst for the commodities business since 1995.

Despite its successes, Morgan Stanley faces a tough road.

The bank, which has had its credit rating cut deeper than its rivals, is also adjusting to a new regulatory environment. It now has to put up more capital against its operations, forcing the bank to leave certain businesses, reducing profitability.

Morgan Stanley is also trying to build market share in less-capital-intensive businesses like interest rates trading. But it is a highly competitive area, with lower margins.

“They have made some clear progress, but still have their work cut out for them in fixed income,” said Mr. Schorr of Nomura.

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White House launches campaign for support of gun control measures

WASHINGTON — A day after President Obama announced a wide-ranging series of gun-control initiatives, the administration kicked off its campaign to create public support and pressure lawmakers to pass the most comprehensive legislation since the mid-1990s.

"We're going to take this fight to the halls of Congress. We're going to take it beyond that," Vice President Joe Biden told the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday. "We're going to take it to the American people. We're going to go around the country making our case, and we're going to let the voice of the American people be heard."

The administration will use Obama's fearsome campaign infrastructure to try to galvanize supporters around an issue that faces a protracted fight on Capitol Hill. To do so, the administration will pit its own grass-roots network against gun-rights groups, such as the National Rifle Assn.

"If you think we've suffered too much pain to allow this to continue, put down the paper, turn off the computer, and get your members of Congress on record," Obama wrote in an opinion piece in the Connecticut Post. "Ask them why getting an A-grade from the gun lobby is more important than giving parents some peace of mind when they drop their child off for first grade."

The newspaper is based in Bridgeport, near Newtown, the site of last month's school shooting that left 20 children and six staff members dead and set off calls for new gun laws.

The mobilization efforts by the president's campaign committee began in earnest Thursday, with campaign manager Jim Messina emailing supporters an online petition and urging them to "stand with the president."

Biden, in his speech to the mayors, acknowledged that there may not be "absolute unanimity" on how to mitigate gun violence, but emphasized consensus.

"Everyone acknowledges we have to do something.... I hope we all agree that mass shootings like the ones that we witnessed in Newtown 34 days ago cannot continue to be tolerated," he said.

Biden outlined many of the initiatives announced by Obama on Wednesday, including administrative actions to improve federal research on gun-related violence and to direct the attorney general to reevaluate the categories of people who should be prohibited from owning a gun. And he made a forceful pitch for the policies that must pass Congress, including a universal background-check system for every gun sale and a ban on high-capacity magazines.

"High-capacity magazines don't have a practical sporting purpose or hunting purpose. As one hunter told me, if you got 12 rounds, it means you've already missed the deer 11 times," Biden said. "You should pack the sucker in at that point."

But Biden spent much less time speaking about an assault weapons ban, which will face stiff opposition in Congress. He also contended that the gun industry would exploit any loopholes in a new law to continue to manufacture the weapons.

"I know as well as anyone, having written the first assault weapons ban, that the industry will do whatever it can to get around it, and they'll figure out a way," the vice president said. "But I also know we have to try."

Chris Koos, the mayor of Normal, Ill., said a "surprising" number of his constituents have voiced support for an assault weapons ban. "I thought there'd be some push-back," Koos said, in his city of 52,000 people in a rural region. But he said Vietnam veterans have been particularly outspoken in their support for a ban, having used similar firearms in combat.

"They know what they are for," Koos said.

But Betsy Price, mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, said most residents of her city were opposed to bans on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.

"Good, outstanding citizens really want to keep their guns," she said.

But Price praised the president's efforts to improve mental health treatment and record-keeping, especially the executive action informing healthcare providers that they are not prevented from sharing relevant information about people who are prohibited from owning guns for mental health reasons.

Biden took pains to assert that the White House respected the 2nd Amendment.

Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle said that message may resonate in his state. "Nebraska is certainly a very, very conservative state. A red state, solid. But when you start polling people, particularly my constituents, you start seeing there is a public concern about the gun violence," he said.

"That's what the vice president is trying to do," Suttle said. "He's saying, 'Hey, the 2nd Amendment is your right. It's our right. Let's move on to the other aspects.'"

Dick Moore, the mayor of Elkhart, Ind., said Biden's choice for his first day on the stump was a savvy one. "He just sent a whole bunch of emissaries back home with what he said," Moore said. "Whether you're for or you're against, you get the word around the country pretty fast this way."

melanie.mason@latimes.com

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Ex-Red Sox pitcher Schilling puts bloody sock up for auction after video game company collapse

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling — whose video game company underwent a spectacular collapse into bankruptcy last year — is selling the blood-stained sock he wore during the 2004 World Series.

Chris Ivy, director of sports for Texas-based Heritage Auctions, says online bidding begins around Feb. 4. Live bidding will take place Feb. 23.

The sock previously had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It has been at Heritage’s Dallas headquarters for several weeks and will be displayed at the auction house’s Manhattan office before it is sold, according to Ivy.

He said the sock is expected to fetch at least $ 100,000, though he described that as a conservative estimate.

“I do expect the bidding to be very spirited,” Ivy said.

Schilling’s company, 38 Studios, was lured to Providence, R.I., from Massachusetts with a $ 75 million loan guarantee in 2010. In May, it laid off all its employees and it filed for bankruptcy in June. The state is now likely responsible for some $ 100 million related to the deal, including interest.

Schilling also had personally guaranteed loans to the company and listed the sock as bank collateral in a September filing with the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office.

Messages left for his publicist were not immediately returned.

The bloody sock is one of two that sent Schilling into the annals of baseball lore in 2004.

The other was from Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, when Schilling pitched against the New York Yankees with an injured ankle. That sock is said to have been discarded in the trash at Yankees Stadium.

The one being sold is from the second game of the World Series, which the Red Sox won that year for the first time in 86 years.

Schilling has said he invested as much as $ 50 million in 38 Studios and has lost all his baseball earnings. He told WEEI-AM in Boston last year that possibly having to sell the sock was part of “having to pay for your mistakes.”

“I’m obligated to try and make amends and, unfortunately, this is one of the byproducts of that,” he told the station.

Brad Horn, a spokesman for the hall of fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., said the loaned sock was returned in December under the terms of the hall’s agreement with Schilling. The hall had had it since 2004.

The Feb. 23 live bidding will be held at the Fletcher-Sinclair mansion in New York City, now home to the Ukrainian Institute of America. The auction will feature other “five- and six-figure items,” including a jersey and cap worn by New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig, Ivy said.

Heritage last May auctioned off the so-called “Bill Buckner ball,” which rolled through the legs of the Red Sox first baseman in the 1986 World Series. Ivy said that item, like Schilling’s sock, was listed at the time as being expected to bring in “$ 100,000-plus,” but it was sold to an anonymous bidder for $ 418,000.

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Eclectic opening for Sundance with films about Mideast, Chile, U.S. Southwest

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) – The Sundance Film Festival opens Thursday with movies and documentaries from around the world, including a feature that examines the cultural divide between the Middle East and the United States.

The 10-day Sundance Film Festival, founded by actor-director Robert Redford and now in its 35th year, will showcase 119 films from 32 countries.

“May in the Summer,” the U.S. dramatic competition opener, comes from writer-director Cherien Dabis, who caught the eye of Sundance organizers in 2009 with her directorial debut “Amreeka,” about a Palestinian family‘s experiences living in post 9/11 America.

Palestinian-American Dabis, 36, reverses the perspective on the Middle East, showing a Jordanian woman who has established a successful life in America but undergoes an identity crisis when she returns to her family in Jordan to plan her wedding.

“May in the Summer” will join U.S. documentary “Twenty Feet from Stardom” about back-up singers, Chilean drama “Crystal Fairy,” “Who is Dayani Cristal,” about a mysterious corpse found in the Arizona desert, and five short films as part of the opening day roster at the world’s leading independent film festival.

“We want the kind of films that will really set the tone for the rest of the festival. Those four films do that perfectly. They’re very different in what they are, but they collectively represent what’s going to be unfolding over the next days,” festival director John Cooper told Reuters.

OPENING UP TO THE WORLD

Festival organizers are making efforts this year to encourage more international stories and filmmakers to come to Sundance.

“They saw the value in the continuing changing world we live in and that even American stories are coming from all over the world,” Dabis said.

“The movie is a universal story that’s set in the Middle East, and we all know the Middle East is a place where we all need to expand our perceptions of what life is like there,” she added.

Sundance founder Robert Redford said the festival was all about encouraging diversity in filmmaking.

“As long as we go forward and we adapt to change, we keep in touch with our original purpose which is simply to support and develop new voices to be seen and heard,” Redford told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

In addition to the usual film competition and premiere categories, festival organizers have expanded their slate of edgier films and projects, including actor James Franco’s sexually explicit films “kink” and “Interior. Leather Bar.”

There is also a thriving short film initiative, with more than 40 films showcased.

Outside of the films, Sundance has become a hot spot for the film industry to escape the hustle of Hollywood’s awards season and relax in Sundance’s more relaxed vibe.

Live music will feature prominently, with a spotlight on electronic dance music and four pop-up clubs featuring DJs such as Nero and Afrojack.

VIPs can take private snowboarding lessons or take part in the culinary event ChefDance, in a fusion of food and film.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Osterman)

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Chinese Economy Picks Up Steam in Last Quarter

HONG KONG — The giant Chinese economy picked up some steam during the last few months of 2012, closely watched data from Beijing on Friday confirmed. But at the same time the figures underlined the view that the pace of future growth is likely to remain well below that seen in recent years.

China’s gross domestic product expanded 7.9 percent during the final quarter of last year, compared to a year earlier — slightly better than expectations, and significantly above the 7.4 percent pace recorded during the previous quarter.

Separate data for the month of December also came in a touch better than analysts had forecast: Retail sales expanded 15.2 percent from a year earlier, and industrial output grew 10.3 percent. Both figures were slightly better than those recorded in November, and helped lift stock markets in mainland China and Hong Kong on Friday.

China’s mild re-acceleration has been helped by a gradual recovery in overseas demand for Chinese-made goods in recent months, as well as a string of economic stimulus measures that helped dissipate earlier concerns that China might be headed for a “hard landing” during 2012.

At the same time however, the batch of data released by the Chinese statistics bureau on Friday also underlined that China’s once red-hot economy has now settled into a much lower pace of expansion.

The head of the statistics authority, Ma Jiantang, acknowledged as much at a press conference in Beijing: “I think you could use these two sentences to give a relatively concise assessment of economic performance in 2012,” he said. “First, national economic performance maintained stability while slowing; second, economic and social development made advances while maintaining stability.”

Annual expansion has slowed to around 8 percent — the pace for 2012 was 7.8 percent, according to Friday’s data, and many analysts expect a similar or slightly better pace for 2013 — far below the double-digit rates it enjoyed in the past.

Moreover, analysts believe the pace is likely to slow even further over the coming decade as the authorities pursue a shift towards higher-quality growth, and grapple with the gradual aging of the country’s population.

Friday’s data confirmed “that the worst is probably over for the economy and that China has avoided a hard landing. But it is quite a narrow escape,” commented Xianfang Ren, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Beijing, in a note. “The economy will likely be wiggling within quite a narrow band of growth rates in 2013, as the upside pull only marginally outweighs the downside drag.”

Chris Buckley contributed reporting.

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State agency says U.S. removed wildlife habitat without permit

A state regulatory agency Wednesday said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to obtain a required permit before it removed 43 acres of wildlife habitat in the Sepulveda Basin and filled in a pond used by migrating waterfowl.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board has directed the Army Corps to provide information by Feb. 11 about its decision to eliminate woodlands and potentially foul the Los Angeles River with sediment. Sepulveda Basin is an engineered flood control zone for the river.

"The corps did not notify us before it proceeded to destroy wetlands, and that is a great concern to us," said Maria Mehranian, chairwoman of the water quality control board. "The federal Clean Water Act requires anyone working in wetlands to obtain a permit from us. They failed to do so."

The board will determine later whether enforcement actions are needed to prevent such unauthorized activities in the future, the agency said in a letter to the corps.

Col. Mark Toy, head of the corps' Los Angeles District, was unavailable for comment. But corps spokesman Jay Field said, "We are working with the Regional Water Quality Control Board to provide information we believe will address any concerns."

Separately, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorities are looking into possible violations of endangered species protections in the Sepulveda Basin.

On Dec. 10, corps crews cut down the swath of basin greenery just west of Interstate 405 and south of Burbank Boulevard, destroying what had been a lush urban refuge for kingsnakes, bobcats and white pelicans.

The area existed for three decades as a designated wildlife preserve. In 2010 it was reclassified as a corps "vegetation management area" and given a new five-year mission of replacing trees and shrubs with native grasses as part of an effort to improve access for corps staffers, increase public safety and discourage crime.

The management plan has been temporarily halted, pending the outcome of ongoing discussions with the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society and the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Areas Steering Committee.

Toy has spent much of the last two weeks meeting privately with critics of the project including the Audubon Society, Sierra Club and state Sens. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

On Tuesday, San Fernando Valley Audubon Society President Dave Weeshoff and Conservation Chairman Kris Ohlenkamp asked corps officials in the Pentagon to revoke the 2010 plan and replace it with a new project designed to "return the area to a diverse native habitat that supports wildlife and fulfills the public's need for a natural outdoor experience in the middle of the city."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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Commentary: Background Checks? Yes, but Leave Video Games Alone

COMMENTARY | I have mixed feelings toward the White House‘s gun violence response. I agree that background checks should be required before people are allowed to buy a firearm and that an assault weapon ban should be reinstated into law. While limiting the number of bullets in a weapon’s magazine will decrease the number of deaths in a mass shooting, the public does not need high-capacity magazines. Therefore any weapon using high-capacity magazines should be banned from public use, not just capping the magazines to 10 bullets.

But violent video games and other media images and scenes real-life violence? These media do not kill people. The shooters kill the people. Those who are mentally unstable may not understand that violent video games are not real life and should not be duplicated in real life. As long as gamers understand the difference between video games and real life, that shouldn’t be touched.

– Edmond, Okla.

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Pregnant Kim Kardashian wants to be more private

NEW YORK (AP) — As the tabloids speculated about whether Jessica Simpson is expecting again (she is) and the media zeroed in on Kate Middleton‘s acute morning sickness, Kim Kardashian says it was nice to be out of the media spotlight during the early stages of her pregnancy.

“I’m obviously so happy for them, but if anything I loved the privacy,” the 32-year-old reality TV star said in an interview Wednesday.

That bit of privacy went out the window when Kardashian’s boyfriend, Kanye West, revealed during a Dec. 30 concert in Atlantic City, N.J., that they are expecting their first child together.

Now that the word is out, Kardashian says her motherly instincts have made her pull back from being so open about her personal life.

“I think that definitely kicks in where you’re like, ‘OK, I have to go in protect mode,’ and as ironic as it sounds, you live your life on a reality show but then when you grow up … certain things change your life that make you want to be more private and this is definitely one of them.”

The couple went public with their relationship in March.

Kardashian married NBA player Kris Humphries in August 2011 and their divorce is not finalized.

West rarely grants interviews, and the 35-year-old rapper is the ying to the Kardashian family’s “out there” yang. Kardashian says she is somewhat influenced by West’s approach.

“When you spend time with someone, you learn things from them, so I see what (his) views are in wanting to be private, so that’s a choice we make together as a family just in how we’re gonna raise our kid,” she said. “… But my personal experience of having really open relationships on the show, I’ve done that, and for me I feel like I got really scrutinized when people didn’t maybe understand my decisions at some point, so I feel like after that experience I’ve become more private more so than just like Kanye’s views or anything.”

Kardashian is due in July.

A new season of her reality show with her sister Kourtney, “Kourtney and Kim Take Miami,” premieres Sunday on E! (9 p.m. EST).

___

Online:

http://www.eonline.com/shows/kourtney_and_kim_take_miami

___

Alicia Rancilio covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

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Some With Autism Diagnosis Can Recover, Study Finds

Doctors have long believed that disabling autistic disorders last a lifetime, but a new study has found that some children who exhibit signature symptoms of the disorder recover completely.

The study, posted online on Wednesday by the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, is the largest to date of such extraordinary cases and is likely to alter the way that scientists and parents think and talk about autism, experts said.

Researchers on Wednesday cautioned against false hope. The findings suggest that the so-called autism spectrum contains a small but significant group who make big improvements in behavioral therapy for unknown, perhaps biological reasons, but that most children show much smaller gains. Doctors have no way to predict which children will do well.

Researchers have long known that between 1 and 20 percent of children given an autism diagnosis no longer qualify for one a few years or more later. They have suspected that in most cases the diagnosis was mistaken; the rate of autism diagnosis has ballooned over the past two decades, and some research suggests that it has been loosely applied.

The new study should put some of that skepticism to rest.

“This is the first solid science to address this question of possible recovery, and I think it has big implications,” said Sally Ozonoff of the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the research. “I know many of us as would rather have had our tooth pulled than use the word ‘recover,’ it was so unscientific. Now we can use it, though I think we need to stress that it’s rare.”

She and other experts said the findings strongly supported the value of early diagnosis and treatment.

In the study, a team led by Deborah Fein of the University of Connecticut at Storrs recruited 34 people who had been diagnosed before the age of 5 and no longer had any symptoms. They ranged in age from 8 to 21 years old and early in their development were in the higher-than-average range of the autism spectrum. The team conducted extensive testing of its own, including interviews with parents in some cases, to gauge current social and communication skills.

The debate over whether recovery is possible has simmered for decades and peaked in 1987, when the pioneering autism researcher O. Ivar Lovaas reported that 47 percent of children with the diagnosis showed full recovery after undergoing a therapy he had devised. This therapy, a behavioral approach in which increments of learned skills garner small rewards, is the basis for the most effective approach used today; still, many were skeptical and questioned his definition of recovery.

Dr. Fein and her team used standardized, widely used measures and found no differences between the group of 34 formerly diagnosed people and a group of 34 matched control subjects who had never had a diagnosis.

“They no longer qualified for the diagnosis,” said Dr. Fein, whose co-authors include researchers from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario; Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; the Institute of Living in Hartford; and the Child Mind Institute in New York. “I want to stress to parents that it’s a minority of kids who are able to do this, and no one should think they somehow missed the boat if they don’t get this outcome.”

On measures of social and communication skills, the recovered group scored significantly better than 44 peers who had a diagnosis of high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

Dr. Fein emphasized the importance of behavioral therapy. “These people did not just grow out of their autism,” she said. “I have been treating children for 40 years and never seen improvements like this unless therapists and parents put in years of work.”

The team plans further research to learn more about those who are able to recover. No one knows which ingredients or therapies are most effective, if any, or if there are patterns of behavior or biological markers that predict such success.

“Some children who do well become quite independent as adults but have significant anxiety and depression and are sometimes suicidal,” said Dr. Fred Volkmar, the director of the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine. There are no studies of this group, he said.

That, because of the new study, is about to change.

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DealBook: H.P. Said to Have Suitors for Two Units

Hewlett-Packard has received a number of inquiries from would-be buyers for its Autonomy and Electronic Data Systems units in recent weeks, though the technology company isn’t interested in selling at the moment, a person briefed on the matter said on Wednesday.

The volume of calls from potential suitors and bankers picked up after H.P. filed its annual report with regulators on Dec. 28, this person said. In the securities filing, the company said, “We also continue to evaluate the potential disposition of assets and businesses that may no longer help us meet our objectives.”

That is fairly standard legal boilerplate. But H.P. has been struggling with poor performance at both Autonomy and E.D.S., having significantly written down the value of those acquisitions. The company has also claimed to have found accounting and disclosure issues at Autonomy, and has forwarded findings from an internal inquiry to securities regulators in the United States and the division’s home in Britain.

Some of the expressions of interest may also have arisen amid the sudden flurry of news coverage surrounding a potential leveraged buyout of Dell.

Still, H.P.’s management team, led by its chief executive, Meg Whitman, is not interested in selling what it considers to be “core” businesses. The company is focused on growing its enterprise business, which sells software and services to corporate clients.

Shares in H.P. were up 3 percent by late afternoon on Wednesday, to $17.03, after The Wall Street Journal reported news of the inquiries. The company’s stock remains down some 35 percent for the last 12 months.

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