NEW YORK (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley's (>> Morgan Stanley) investment management unit is setting a goal of reaching $500 billion in assets and a 20 percent return-on-equity by 2016, the head of that business said on Wednesday.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management now has $338 billion in assets under management, well below top players like BlackRock Inc (>> BlackRock, Inc.), which has $3.79 trillion in assets, according to a presentation at a Credit Suisse conference given by Greg Fleming, president of the Wall Street bank's wealth and investment management units.

Morgan Stanley is in the process of reducing the capital it has in hedge funds and private-equity funds to comply with the Volcker rule, while trying to increase fee revenue from other types of funds, Fleming said.

(Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Stocks treated in this article : BlackRock, Inc., Morgan Stanley