Davey will lead prime brokerage sales at Citi for Greater China region and is among one of the four hires by the Wall Street bank this quarter, David Murphy, head of Citi's prime finance unit for Asia-Pacific, told Reuters, confirming the hire.

Other hires include David Stanbridge, former chief operating officer at Hong Kong-based hedge fund Kilometre Capital.

A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said Davey was on gardening leave and will be replaced by Stella Jaeger, an executive director in the prime brokerage sales team based in Singapore.

The hire is part of Citigroup's plan to gain market share in the fiercely competitive industry which is led by Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) in the region.

Citi is ranked No. 7 prime broker in the region with assets under management of about $6 billion and 72 mandates, a survey released in May by industry tracker AsiaHedge showed.

(Reporting by Nishant Kumar; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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