2010/11/03

$3bln?Morgan Stanley Sells Carbon Developer Stake to Mercuri

see attched ... start of our 2006 story below. comments my way folks/ Morgan Stanley Invests $3 Billion in Emission Credits (Update4)


(Adds price in final paragraph.)

By Mathew Carr
Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, the biggest U.S.
securities firm, proposed to invest within five years in about $3
billion of emissions credits and projects to curb greenhouse gas
output, taking advantage of surging trading volumes.
Investments will include credits from the Clean Development
Mechanism of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Morgan Stanley said today in
an e-mailed statement. That mechanism encourages rich nations to
spend on projects like wind farms and chemical-gas-combustion
plants in poor countries. Credits can be traded for profit.
``We strongly support the use of market-based solutions to
meet environmental policies and objectives,'' said Simon
Greenshields, the bank's global head of power, associated power
fuels and emissions trading and structuring.
Industrialized nations may spend as much as $100 billion a
year in developing nations by 2050, helping ensure fast-growing
economies switch to low-fossil-fuel economies, the United Nations...

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Mathew Carr, emissions markets, energy reporter. London Bloomberg News ph +44 207 073 3531 yahoo ID carr_mathew

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Morgan Stanley Sells Carbon Developer Stake to Mercuria Energy
2010-11-03 11:50:23.856 GMT


By Mathew Carr
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, which said in 2006 it
would spend about $3 billion on emission credits and greenhouse
gas-reduction projects in five years, sold its stake in a carbon
developer to Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. for an undisclosed sum.
Geneva-based Mercuria bought the stake in MGM International
Group LLC, a Miami, Florida-based developer of carbon credits,
from shareholders including a unit of Morgan Stanley and MGM's
founders, it said today in an e-mailed statement. Morgan Stanley
said in 2007 that it had bought 38 percent of MGM in the
previous year. Hugh Fraser, a Morgan Stanley spokesman in
London, declined to comment when contacted by e-mail and phone.
"MGM represents a strategic move for Mercuria and signals
our belief in the long-term opportunities in this market,
including post 2012," Andrei Marcu, head of policy and
regulatory affairs at Mercuria, said by phone today. "This
acquisition will provide additional supply" of emission credits
including from China, Latin America and Africa, he said.
The global carbon market fell 9.7 percent to $28 billion in
the third quarter from $31 billion in the year-earlier quarter,
according to estimates from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the
London provider of research on CO2 markets. United Nations talks
have so far failed to extend or replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol,
which set emission limits for developed nations in the five
years through 2012.
The MGM acquisition boosts ties with potential buyers of
credits, including in Japan and potentially California, Marcu
said. "Japan is where long-term relationships matter."
Mercuria, which trades oil and other energy commodities, is
beginning to examine entering the Californian carbon market,
Marcu said. "You have to be in the Californian market. We are
not doing this to provide credits only for the remaining two
years of the Kyoto Protocol compliance period."

For Related News and Information:
For a Chart on EU Carbon: MOZ0 <CMDTY> GP <GO>
For a Chart on UN Emissions: CARZ0 <CMDTY> GP <GO>
Link to Company News:MS US <Equity> CN <GO>
Link to Company News:3909317Z SW <Equity> CN <GO>

--Editors: Raj Rajendran, Rob Verdonck.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Mathew Carr in London at +44-20-7073-3531 or
m.carr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephen Voss at +44-20-7073-3520 or sev@bloomberg.net