Morgan Stanley's Plan To Return $4.25 Billion To Shareholders Gets Fed Clearance

Given the bank's roughly 1.95 billion outstanding shares, the proposed 15-cents-a-share quarterly dividend represents a total dividend payout of around $1.15 billion. Coupled with the share buyback plan, the approved plan represents Morgan Stanley's intention to return $4.25 billion to shareholders over the next four quarters. Notably, this is only slightly lower than the $4.75 billion in cash the bank handed out on an average over the 2005-2007 period.