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Morgan Stanley lays off Asia PE banking head

Jonathan Mandel, who joined the bank's Hong Kong office this March, has been caught up in a round of redundancies.

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Morgan Stanley managing director and head of its private equity banking team in Asia Pacific, Jonathan Mandel, will be leaving the bank “in the next few months”, a source close to the matter has confirmed. 

Mandel joined the Hong Kong office in March  and heads Morgan Stanley’s financial sponsors group in Asia Pacific.

His departure after less than a year’s tenure is part of the round of layoffs announced by the bank last month, Reuters reported.

Leverage finance teams in Asia, which work with financial sponsors to arrange loans for private equity firms, have been feeling the squeeze of the credit crunch.

In November, Dutch financial firm ING reduced the head count of its leverage finance department in Asia in preparation for an expected downturn. Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group also shut down its  Asian leverage finance group, which had been established in May 2007.

Morgan Stanley declined to comment.