NEW YORK – Morgan Stanley may cement its status as the top underwriter for U.S. initial public offerings for a third year running with its lead role on Facebook’s planned $5 billion sale.

Getting picked for the IPO, which Facebook disclosed in a regulatory filing this month, is a coup for Morgan Stanley and Michael Grimes, 45, a banker at the firm since 1995 who has long-standing ties to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.

Grimes, the global co-head of the bank’s technology investment banking unit, and his Morgan Stanley colleagues won the biggest share of business underwriting U.S. IPOs by Internet companies last year, helping propel them to the top ranking in all U.S. IPOs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Facebook’s sale would be the biggest Internet IPO on record.

“This means a huge windfall for them,” said Jack Ablin, who helps oversee $55 billion as chief investment officer for Chicago-based Harris Private Bank. “The fact that they have led so many high-profile social media deals in the last year is proof positive that Morgan Stanley is most likely to be able to get this deal done.”

Morgan Stanley worked on IPOs by Zynga and LinkedIn, among the biggest Internet debuts in the U.S. last year, helped by Grimes’ connections with venture capital firms. Grimes meets regularly with investors in search of promising startups, has close ties to firms such as Sequoia Capital and is an early adopter of his clients’ products.

Grimes met Sandberg in 2001 at a party in Silicon Valley where she was job hunting after having worked at the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, according to a 2008 interview with Grimes. At the same party, Sandberg also met Eric Schmidt, then chief executive officer of Google, who subsequently hired her, according to Grimes.

Morgan Stanley led Google’s 2004 IPO, by which time Sandberg was a senior executive there. Grimes, an early user of Facebook, has described Sandberg as a consummate networker and a decisive leader who is highly persuasive.

JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America, Barclays and Allen & Co. also will help with the sale, Facebook said in the filing. Morgan Stanley, listed first in the filing, stands to earn a larger share of the fees collected by securities firms for arranging the IPO. Facebook has a $2.5 billion revolving credit facility with affiliates of Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Barclays, the filing shows.

JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, has a longtime friendship with Sandberg and spoke with her about the IPO at various times, two people familiar with the matter said. That relationship helped JPMorgan edge out Goldman for a top spot in the IPO, they said. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan found out about a week before the filing they would be the lead names on the filing, said one of the people.

A spokeswoman for JPMorgan and Jonathan Thaw, a spokesman for Facebook, declined to comment.

Goldman Sachs, whose equity capital markets revenue slid to No. 4 among U.S. rivals in 2011, failed to win the lead role in Facebook’s initial public offering after scuttling a private sale of the Internet company’s stock to investors.

The average fee on the IPOs of Yandex NV, Zynga, Renren and Groupon, the four Internet companies that each raised more than $500 million in U.S. initial offerings last year, was 5.1 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At that percentage, a $10 billion Facebook IPO would generate fees of as much as $510 million for its underwriters.

Bankers handling Facebook’s IPO may collect fees of as little as 1 percent to 1.5 percent, said two people with knowledge of the matter.