Hong Kong's Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd, backed by Li Ka-shing, Asia's richest man, has bought Britain's Eversholt Rail for 2.5 billion pounds ($3.8 billion), the latest in a string of Asian buyers targeting European assets. UK private equity fund 3i Infrastructure Plc said on Tuesday that it and Eversholt's other investors had sold their entire holding to the Hong Kong billionaire' s CKI group.Eversholt owns around 28 percent of the UK's passenger trains, with 19 fleets. It is one of the UK's three leading rail rolling stock companies.3i, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, and STAR Capital Partners with its co-investor PGGM, acquired the business for 2.1 billion pounds from HSBC in 2010.The sale of 3i's stake will generate around 358 million pounds, it said, as well as a 15.5 million pound sum received in December. A source close to the deal said that STAR, a London investment fund manager, would make a return of 3.4 times its investment.
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services company that, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides its products and services to a range of clients and customers, including corporations, governments, financial institutions and individuals. Shares of MS traded higher by 0.9% or $0.31/share to $34.89. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $28.31 and as high as $39.19. On average, 9447070 shares of MS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 27056108.
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