HONG KONG (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley will cut at least 50 jobs at its investment banking unit in Asia-Pacific due to weak trading, two people familiar with the matter said.
The job cuts will affect about 13% of the Wall Street bank’s 400 Asian investment banking employees in the region, one of the people said.
Bankers based in Hong Kong and mainland China will be most affected, they said. All sources declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman declined to comment.
Bloomberg first reported the layoffs on Wednesday.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the bank’s mergers and acquisitions advisory fees fell 41.5% to $30.4 million in the first quarter, according to data compiled by LSEG.
(This article has been amended to correct the source of M&A fees to LSEG rather than corporate performance in paragraph 6)
(Reporting by Serena Lee, Julie Zhu and Kane Wu in Hong Kong and Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Jamie Freed)