Morgan Stanley Asia growth plan returns principal only

This Morgan Stanley kickout that matured in January returned investors’ initial capital but nothing else – a consequence of the very slow recovery in two Asia equity indexes over the past six years

In January 2008, Morgan Stanley issued the first version of its Asia (ex-Japan) Protected Growth Plan, which was linked to the performance of an equally weighted basket containing the Hang Seng and MSCI Taiwan indexes. The product had a single autocall opportunity, which would have been triggered after three years if the basket had increased in value by more than 30%, at which point the product would have matured and paid a return of 130% of the initial investment. If the autocall conditions