Sources familiar with the matter were quoted by Bloomberg as saying that investment bankers including Asian managing directors Saul Raccah and Leon Guo will leave the firm.
As part of chief executive officer James Gorman’s strategy to reduce $1.4bn of annual expenses by 2014, the New York-based lender is paring 1,600 employees from its investment bank and support staff globally, in the next few weeks.
The 15% job reduction will be implemented in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, which will mainly affect country bankers and staff in the mergers and acquisitions and global capital market units.
Compared to planned 6% job reduction across the broader institutional securities group worldwide, the job cuts in Asia investment banking is expected to be deeper.
The lender, which employs 57,726 employees as of 30 September 2012, has already reduced 4,200 jobs by the end of first nine months of last year.
Operating in 43 nations, Morgan Stanley manages 1,200 offices and offers numerous investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services.
