In 1996 Morgan Stanley acquired Van Kampen American Capital . On February 5 , 1997 the company merged with Dean Witter Discover & Co. , the spun-off financial services business of Sears Roebuck . Dean Witter 's Chairman and CEO , Philip J. Purcell , continued to hold the same roles in the newly merged " Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co. " . Originally , the name of this new firm was chosen to be the combination of the names of the two predecessor companies in order to avoid tension between executives from the two firms . In 1998 , the name of the firm was changed to " Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. " . Eventually in 2001 " Dean Witter " was further dropped and the name became " Morgan Stanley " for unrevealed reasons , even though in the 1990s the new company had made efforts to keep alive the image of its founder Dean G. Witter . Morgan Stanley had offices located on 24 floors across buildings 2 and 5 of the World Trade Center in New York City . These offices had been inherited from Dean Witter which had occupied the space since the mid-1980s . The firm lost thirteen employees during the September 11 attacks in 2001 ( Thomas F. Swift , Wesley Mercer , Jennifer de Jesus , Joseph DiPilato , Nolbert Salomon , Godwin Forde , Steve R. Strauss , Lindsay C. Herkness , Albert Joseph , Jorge Velazquez , Titus Davidson , Charles Laurencin and Security Director Rick Rescorla ) in the towers , while 2,687 were successfully evacuated by Rick Rescorla . The surviving employees moved to temporary headquarters in the vicinity . In 2005 Morgan Stanley moved 2,300 of its employees back to lower Manhattan , at that time the largest such move
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Morgan Stanley