Morgan Stanley welcomes Sinha back to the fold

Feb 8, 2011

After a four-year sojourn as a hedge fund manager, Ashutosh Sinha returns to the Wall Street firm as managing director and senior portfolio manager at MSIM.

There is life after being a hedge fund manager, as Ashutosh Sinha proves, according to an internal memo AsianInvestor snaffled from the dustbins while doing its rounds yesterday.

Sinha is returning to Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) as a managing director and senior portfolio manager on the global emerging markets equity team, and will be based in Singapore. He will report to Ruchir Sharma, head of global emerging markets equity.

Sinha had left the firm in 2006 to set up Amoeba Capital Partners, a Singapore-based long/short equity fund, along with his brother Manish. He then announced he was shutting down the fund in October 2010.

There were lots of rumours about why he was doing this, including titbits about redemption and a style drift that migrated towards India.

AsianInvestor put these scurrilous suppositions to him and he poo-poohed them, telling us he was shutting down his firm because he fancied going on holiday. As he is starting his new role in early April, that at least gives him time to go somewhere nice.

His return to the fold comes after MSIM lost key management personnel last year, including Asia-Pacific CEO Blair Pickerell who joined Nikko Asset Management as its head of Asia and global chief marketing officer, and his former deputy Sandra Lee, who joined iShares as Asia-Pacific head of sales. It came after MSIM moved to shift sales, client service and other activities to be based out of London.

Sinha had previously been managing director and head of Asian investments and co-portfolio manager for global emerging markets at Morgan Stanley. He was also the Asia ex-Japan equities CIO since 2000.

So this prodigal return means he becomes a two-time Morgan Stanley managing director, whereas few even make it once.

The firm’s list of top dogs continues to grow. The list of new Morgan Stanley MDs was published last week and includes such Asian-based stars as veteran Chris Jackson, the chief operating officer of their Asian fixed income division.