Andrew Paik, a managing director and head of debt capital markets for Korea at Morgan Stanley, will be leaving the firm at the end of this month, according to a source. His departure comes just weeks after Joyce Lim, an associate in the same DCM team in Korea, left the bank in January.
A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley confirmed the departures.
After Paik leaves, the firm will have one junior debt capital markets banker on the ground in Korea. A person familiar with the matter said that Morgan Stanley will cover the Korean debt capital markets from Hong Kong. The source added that the firm has a number of Korean speakers in its Hong Kong-based DCM team.
However, rival bankers suggested that it will be hard to cover the Korean debt markets without an on-the-ground presence. “Most of the banks have a debt capital markets team in Korea and there are plenty of hungry debt capital markets bankers in Seoul. It’s hard to see Korean borrowers giving [you] business if you don’t have a presence on the ground,” said one banker.
Morgan Stanley has been downsizing in the region. In January, the bank let go of about 50 investment bankers in Asia as part of the 1,600 jobs that the bank will be cutting worldwide across its institutional securities group.
