HONG KONG (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley is cutting at least 50 investment banking jobs in the Asia-Pacific region due to a slowdown in deals, two sources familiar with the matter said.
The layoffs affected about 13% of the Wall Street bank’s 400-person investment banking business in Asia, one of the people said.
Bankers based in Hong Kong and mainland China will be hit the hardest, they said. All the sources declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A Morgan Stanley spokesman declined to comment.
Bloomberg was the first to report the job cuts on Wednesday.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the bank’s M&A advisory fees fell 41.5% to $30.4 million in the first quarter, according to data compiled by LSEG.
(This story has been corrected to indicate the source of LSEG’s M&A fees, rather than the company’s results, in paragraph 6)