The IPO market is booming, but it's not for the inexperienced investor, Morgan Stanley's co-head of global capital markets told CNBC on Thursday.
"From around the world we've got a healthy IPO pipeline, healthy amount of follow-ons and healthy placements," Raj Dhanda said on "Squawk Alley."
With the tech-heavy Nasdaq nearly at 5,000, Dhanda drew a distinction between today's IPOs and those of 15 years ago during the height of the dot-com bubble.
"Companies today go public later," he said. "They've been introduced to investors through the private-placement market often, so it's a robust and attractive market."
He said the private-placement market, in which companies seeking financing turn to select groups of investors before going public, has "exploded."
"The IPO market requires sophisticated investors, and today's private placement financing is much like an IPO 10 years ago in terms of the sophistication of the investors," he said.