Morgan Stanley takes $900m hit from Archegos

MORGAN Stanley unveiled a $911m (£660m) loss from the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, the trading empire owned by Bill Hwang.

The investment bank posted a $644m credit loss and $267m of trading losses during the first quarter, which it said were tied to Archegos. The family office owned by Mr Hwang defaulted on margin calls last month and triggered a fire sale of stocks across Wall Street.

It has caused heavy losses at a string of global investment banks including Credit Suisse, which was left nursing losses totalling $4.7bn.

The collapse of Archegos dented an otherwise record quarter for revenue and profit at Morgan Stanley, which posted an overall net income of $4.1bn compared with $1.7bn a year earlier.

Net revenues jumped 60pc to $15.7bn as it benefited from a boom in dealmaking. Global investment banking fees hit an all-time record of $39.4bn during the March quarter, according to Refinitiv.

Separately yesterday, Citigroup revealed plans to hire more than 300 wealth managers in Hong Kong in a bid to double its wealth assets over the next five years. The bank also announced it was closing its retail banking business in 13 markets across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.