Emerging economies help wealth-management assets up 35% in last 10 months. Morgan Stanley's Asian private-wealth business has grown by about 35% in the last 10 months, according to the company -- which credits market growth in China, Indonesia and India for the increase.

"This year we have had close to 35% growth in assets and these are new assets coming in through the door, not from market appreciation," Leslie Menkes, Morgan Stanley's Singapore-based head of private wealth management for in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and India, told Reuters last week.

Headcount

Although Morgan Stanley declines to reveal the exact figure, one estimate puts the company's Asian-Pacific assets under management at around $20 billion; in comparison, UBS's assets under management in the region comes to about $100 billion in.

Indonesia has been Morgan Stanley's fastest growing market over the past year or so, even outstripping growth areas like China, India and Taiwan. This may be due to Indonesia's abundance of natural resources, including petroleum and natural gas.

Morgan Stanley's-wealth management arm plans to double regional headcount to around 300 over the next three years to keep pace with anticipated growth.

"We are pretty confident that we can maintain double-digit growth," says Menkes. "Our assumption is north of 20 percent."

Menkes says he expects China to be the main driver of growth. -FWR.

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