Silicon Valley startups sometimes bicker with their investors, but tensions between Peter Thiel’s Palantir Technologies Inc. and Morgan Stanley’s mutual funds are reaching a breaking point.
The banks’ funds have cut their valuation of a minor stake in the secretive data-mining company several times in the last two years, estimating the company’s worth at just $4.4 billion as of September 30. That’s well below the appraisal of several other investors in the firm and just one-ninth the valuation Morgan Stanley’s own bankers predict the company could fetch in an initial public offering.
