Morgan Stanley picks Dallas over Alpharetta for 3,800-job hub

Morgan Stanley has chosen Dallas, not Alpharetta, for a new U.S. operations hub. The bank plans to invest $684 million there and employ more than 3,800 people.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced the decision Monday, Sept. 28, in a news release from his office. The state is giving the bank a Texas Enterprise Fund grant of $43,849,500 and a $40,000 Veteran Created Job Bonus, the release said.

Alpharetta was the only other city in the running. Dallas city staff told the Dallas City Council in June that “Morgan Stanley has narrowed the selection to two cities: Dallas, Texas or Alpharetta, Georgia.” The resolution the council approved on June 24 says the same thing: “Morgan Stanley is also considering Alpharetta, Georgia for this Project.”

What Alpharetta was competing for

The Dallas council’s agenda item sets out what the bank told the city it plans to do. The project comes in two phases.

The bank has also said it could add another 1,000 jobs at the permanent site by the end of 2039, for a total of 4,800, the agenda item says. It puts the expected average wage at $128,000 a year, not counting benefits.

The jobs are expected to be in:

• wealth management
• legal, compliance, risk management and audits
• human resources
• information services and security
• operations and other corporate services

The developer is expected to spend about $650 million more on the building itself, according to the same document.

What Dallas offered

Dallas approved up to $18.5 million in city grants, according to the council’s agenda item:

• up to $10 million tied to jobs, including an optional $2 million if the bank adds the extra 1,000 jobs
• $7.5 million paid over five years in place of a property tax break on the new building
• up to $1 million to cover permit, inspection and development fees

The city also agreed to waive 90% of its taxes on the bank’s new business equipment, for five years at the temporary office and 10 years at the permanent one. It put the tax it expects to give up at $700,000 and $4.1 million over those periods.

Morgan Stanley in Alpharetta

The bank already has a large presence here. In July 2023, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office said more than 4,000 Georgians worked for Morgan Stanley across its offices in metro Atlanta and the rest of the state. The same release said the bank was close to its 2020 goal of adding 1,800 jobs in Georgia, and that the City of Alpharetta and Select Fulton worked on the project.

“Our expansion in Alpharetta will play a key role in growing and broadening our talent base,” Ekene Ezulike, Morgan Stanley’s global head of corporate and enterprise services, said in that 2023 release.

Neither the Texas announcement nor the Dallas council records say anything about the bank’s existing Alpharetta offices. Nothing in them says jobs will move out of Georgia. Dallas counts jobs relocated “from outside of Dallas” toward the bank’s targets, but the documents do not say where those jobs would come from.

What it means for you

• No announced change to the Alpharetta offices. The records cover new jobs in Dallas. They do not mention cuts or moves here. If that changes, we will report it.
• We know what Dallas offered, not what Georgia offered. The Dallas and Texas grants together come to about $62 million, before the equipment tax break. We found no published record of an offer from Georgia, Fulton County or Alpharetta.
• How local taxes are set. Our property taxes page explains the city and county rates and the votes due this fall.
• Following business news? See our story on Keter opening its North American headquarters in Alpharetta and our new businesses page.