Morgan Stanley to start India wealth biz

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Singapore, October 8:: Morgan Stanley plans to launch private wealth management services in India next year, its first onshore wealth business in Asia, and expects to hire around 100 private bankers, an executive said on Monday.

"That will be our first buildout on an onshore private wealth business in Asia," said Leslie Menkes, a Singapore-based managing director for the Wall Street bank's private wealth management arm, while speaking at the Reuters Wealth Management Summit.

The bank expected it would be managing around $1 billion in private banking assets in India at the end of three years, he said.

Morgan would be competing against Citigroup and Merrill Lynch as the three U.S. banks aggressively try to tap India's fast-growing private banking market. India had 100,000 millionaires in 2006, up 21 percent from a year earlier, according to a Merril Lynch/Capgemini report.

Merrill said in March it plans to expand to cover at least 10 Indian cities in the next three years, from five cities now.

A senior Citigroup executive told Reuters in February that the bank plans to double the number of bankers dealing with wealthy non-resident and resident Indians from about 100, by the end of 2008.

Citi's Smith Barney broking unit, which handles clients with assets of at least $1 million, plans to grow from one office now to a presence in 12 Indian cities.