Morgan Stanley’s bonus payments for star Asian bankers will jump by up to 50%, sources say By Reuters
From Selena Li
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Morgan Stanley (NYSE: ) Asia’s top investment bankers and traders will receive up to a 50% bonus increase due to strong business growth and low base performance from last year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The jump in bonus payments in the region will come after the Wall Street firm saw its new chief executive Ted Pick complete a successful first year and benefited from buoyant trading activity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Revenue at the bank’s institutional equities business, a key part of its sales and trading business, rose 51% globally in the fourth quarter compared with a year ago, with operations in Asia providing a strong boost to global growth, the bank said earlier this year. month.
Top Wall Street banks, including Morgan Stanley, are seeing big bonus increases in Asia for traders this year because of buoyant client activity last year, according to one of the people.
Morgan Stanley, which is among Asia’s biggest earners of stock trading fees, has told some top bankers in Asia that their bonuses will be about 40% higher this year compared with 2024, two of the people said.
Higher bonus payments help investment banks retain their best traders, a move that is particularly crucial in Asia, where they have seen layoffs in recent years.
The sources declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A spokesman for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong declined to comment. Investment banks usually never disclose the amount of bonuses distributed to traders and traders.
Bloomberg, citing knowledgeable sources, reported on Monday that some senior Morgan Stanley bankers, particularly those who worked on the India and Australia deals, will see their bonus payments increase by 30% to 40% this year.
Morgan Stanley ranked second last year for investment banking revenue in the APAC and Japan international region, according to Dealogic data. It collected $355 million in fees in APAC, trailing JPMorgan, and collected $511 million in Japan, where it trails Nomura, the data showed.
The jump in Morgan Stanley bonuses would come from a low base last year when top traders saw their bonuses drop more than 20% from a year earlier, one of the people said.
Almost one-third of managing directors received no bonus in Asia last year, the person said.
