(Adds details of deals King was involved in.) By Amy Or Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Morgan Stanley's (MS) head of mergers and acquisitions for Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Edward King, has left the U.S. bank to join Barclays PLC (BCS, BARC.LN), a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday. King is expected to take up a similar position at Barclays when he rejoins his former boss, Matthew Ginsburg, at the U.K. bank. Ginsburg, who was Morgan Stanley's Asia Pacific investment banking head, joined Barclays last September in a similar position as Barclays seeks to build out its equities platform after buying Lehman Brothers Holding Inc.'s U.S. operations in September 2008. King, a Morgan Stanley veteran, was involved in numerous high profile deals in Asia. In the past 12 months, he advised PetroChina Corp. (PTR, 0857.HK, 601857.SH) in the A$3.44 billion takeover of the bulk of Arrow Energy Ltd.'s (AOE.AU) Australian assets by the Chinese oil company and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA, RDSB, RDSA.LN, RDSB.LN) and American International Group Inc. (AIG) on the $2.15 billion sale of its Taiwan life insurance unit in October. The Hong Kong-based banker also handled Hong Kong container liner Orient Overseas (International) Ltd.'s (0316.HK) sale of its property development unit in February. A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman confirmed King is leaving the bank and that Sam Kim and Peter Ding will succeed King as Asia Pacific co-heads of M&A. -By Amy Or, Dow Jones Newswires, (212) 416 3142, amy.or@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 08, 2010 11:10 ET (15:10 GMT)