TOKYO Masanori Mochida, president of Goldman Sachs' Japanese unit, will retire after more than three decades at the U.S. investment bank, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Mochida, who is in his late sixties, joined Goldman Sachs in 1985 as an associate in the corporate finance department from Japan's Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank, one of the three predecessor banks of Mizuho Bank. He became co-branch manager of Goldman Sachs Japan in 1999.

The source declined to be identified as the information is not public. Goldman Sachs could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Financial Times, which first reported his departure, said Mochida was on track to retire from the bank at some point in 2024. However, it said that over the past few days the decision had been made to speed up that process amid growing internal concern that the bank needs fresh leadership in Tokyo as competition for deals with rival U.S. investment banks intensifies.

(Reporting by Devika Nair and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru and Makiko Yamazaki in Tokyo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Susan Fenton)