Morgan Stanley mostly cleared out VPs and EDs before bonuses are paid

By all accounts, Morgan Stanley announced some pretty generous bonuses this year. However, not everyone will be there to receive them. You may recall that Morgan Stanley cut "dozens" of jobs in sales and trading earlier this month. We now know who was removed in London.

Morgan Stanley insiders say the bank cut around 12 people in equities in London a few weeks ago. Most were at vice president or executive director level.

Fredrik Magni, Morgan Stanley's co-head of equities for the Nordic region is going. Magni spent 19 years with the bank before leaving earlier this month.

At executive director and VP level, Morgan Stanley parted company with David Prowse in specialist sales (Prowse, who covered specialist sales for the matierals sector, now says he's retired on his LinkedIn profile), James White in European equity sales, Alex Shaer (who covered specialist sales for industrials, autos, aerospace and defence), Victor Cortes (who covered Latin American equities sales) and Iwan Braaff, who worked in sales trading for the Nordic and Benelux regions.

Aymeric Gastaldi, who covered global equities sales for Morgan Stanley in Paris, is also gone.

Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the exits. They come as European equities businesses are being squeezed by MiFID II regulations, which are encouraging growth in electronic trading and leading to demand for new kinds of salespeople who can discuss execution venues as well as trade ideas.

MiFID II is also benefiting market leaders (of which Morgan Stanley is one). However, last year revenues in the bank's equities sales and trading business rose by 12.5% compared to an increase of nearly 20% at JPMorgan. Even so, one equities London headhunter told us Morgan Stanley was "top of the class" in terms of pay this year.  That's not much consolation for those who were let go.

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