Morgan Stanley to Double Private Bankers in Asia

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley plans to double its private bankers in Asia over the next three years as Chief Executive Officer James Gorman aims to boost profits from the global wealth management unit that he’d previously helmed.

The company plans to hire almost 100 bankers in the region this year, Charles Mak, head of private wealth management for Asia, said in an interview. It also appointed Nick Chan, an ex- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who was running New York-based Morgan Stanley’s Indonesian private bank, to a newly-created recruiting and staff development role for Mak’s group this year.

“This will be our most aggressive expansion in the private wealth space in Asia,” Mak said by telephone from Hong Kong. “This region has the best economic growth, the highest levels of wealth creation, and many players are coming to this part of the world, or are expanding.”

The bank is competing with rivals including UBS AG, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG and Julius Baer Group Ltd. to hire financial advisers in a market with an estimated $7.4 trillion of private riches. Growth in the region’s wealth will outstrip the global average as its economies outperform, Capgemini SA and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management said in October.

Morgan Stanley provides services for the so-called ultra- high net worth segment in Asia, aiming at clients who have at least $10 million in wealth. In India and Australia, it also targets people starting with $1 million or more.

Global Operations

Separately today, Morgan Stanley said its Asia chairman Stephen Roach will relocate to New York from Hong Kong and become its non-executive chairman for Asia. The move will take effect on July 1.

Pretax profit for Morgan Stanley’s global-wealth management unit more than doubled to $278 million for the first quarter. The company paid $2.75 billion in cash in June 2009 to create the world’s largest brokerage by gaining control of Citigroup Inc.’s Smith Barney and the biggest U.S. team of financial advisers.

Gorman, who led the brokerage before succeeding John Mack at the helm of Morgan Stanley in January, said in a letter to shareholders in April that the joint venture will play “an increasingly important role in our growth and profitability.”

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney President Charles Johnston has said the venture will look to expand outside the U.S. because those markets are set to grow faster. The unit employed about 18,140 advisers globally and managed client assets of about $1.6 trillion at the end of the quarter, Morgan Stanley said April 21.

Chan, 39, will relocate to Hong Kong from Singapore next week. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 with three of his five- member team from Goldman Sachs. He had previously overseen the private banking business in Indonesia from Singapore for Goldman Sachs, after starting his career in investment banking with Smith Barney Asia Inc. in 1994 in Hong Kong.