Morgan Stanley told brokers on Wednesday it is reviewing every Facebook Inc. trade and will make price adjustments for retail customers who paid too much during the social network company's debut last week, according to an internal memo.
Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter of Facebook's initial public offering on Friday, in the memo also said "many" of the first-day trades have now been processed and are appearing in client accounts. The company did not specify how much it expected to pay in total price adjustments.
"All orders are currently being reviewed for best execution pricing," the memo, which was obtained by Reuters, said. "We expect there will be a number of price adjustments. The largest adjustments will be processed first over the next several days and the remaining adjustments will be completed as quickly and as thoroughly as possible."
A "very limited number of orders" are still pending, but Morgan Stanley told its more than 17,000 brokers that it expects to have remaining orders resolved and booked Wednesday.
Morgan Stanley confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to elaborate.
Facebook's highly anticipated market debut Friday was beset by trading glitches on the Nasdaq’s stock market. T he opening of trading in the social networking company's new shares was delayed by about 30 minutes. Shares priced by underwriters at $38 briefly rose to $45 in early trading but then fell and ended on Friday little changed.
A significant number of investors at Morgan Stanley and other brokerages were left in limbo — some as late as Tuesday — with trade orders that were not processed.
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