The New York Times-20080129-Spain- Morgan Stanley Sells Unit- -Brief-

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Spain: Morgan Stanley Sells Unit; [Brief]

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A Spanish savings bank, La Caixa, said it had agreed to buy Morgan Stanley's Spanish private banking unit and planned to keep growing until it was the country's biggest wealth manager. A La Caixa spokesman said a price had not yet been set for the private bank, which has about 9 billion euros ($13 billion) of assets under management. La Caixa has been strengthening its own private banking business and at the end of September had 8,000 clients worth a million euros or more and assets under management of over 16.6 billion euros, up 40 percent year-on-year. La Caixa said it would now be among the three top private banks in Spain and aimed to be the biggest in 2010.