Morgan Stanley 1999 Annual Report Download - page 4

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99 AR |page 21999 was an extraordinary year for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, our clients
and our shareholders. The commitment and exceptional performance of our
55,000 employees around the globe led to increases in market share in several
key businesses. We ended the year in the strongest position in our history, and
we are poised for further growth in the new millennium.
Let’s begin with our financial results:
•We earned $4.8 billion in 1999, an increase of $1.5 billion, or 46 percent over 1998.
Diluted earnings per share was $4.10 — up 54 percent from $2.67 in 1998.
•Return on equity was 32.6 percent — well above our goal of an average of 18 percent to
20 percent over the course of the business cycle.
•On December 31, 1999, our stock closed up 101 percent from a year earlier. Since our
merger on May 31, 1997, our stock price has risen by 244 percent compared with 73 per-
cent for the S&P 500.
•In December, the Board of Directors declared a two-for-one common stock split for common
shareholders of record as of January 12, 2000. The Board also increased the quarterly cash
dividend per common share by 67 percent to $0.20.
What was the story behind these extraordinary results? You can begin with an excellent year for
most financial markets, especially compared with the turbulence experienced in the latter half
of 1998. But the story goes deeper than that and has to do with the remarkable transformation
that is occurring in the world of business generally and with our customers. We are witnessing an
intensification of the trends we discussed a year ago — particularly the rapid technological
dear shareholders,