Gartmore hires Aviva's Dan Roberts

Roberts, ranked as one of Britain’s top 100 fund manager's, will join Gartmore in mid-July and will lead the £137m Gartmore UK Equity Income Fund.

The fund's current manager Chris Burvill will now focus his attention purely on the £639m Gartmore Cautious Managed Fund.

Roberts has been with Aviva for six years managing over £500m of assets, including the Aviva Investors UK Equity Income Fund which returned a 36.3 per cent top decile performance over the last five years to the end of 2008.

Gartmore chief investment officer Dominic Rossi said: "Dan is recognised as one of the very best income managers in the UK.

"This appointment strengthens our position in UK equities and specifically in a product category which we believe has great long term potential."

The appointment follows a string of other senior appointments made over the past 18 months at Gartmore, including Rossi, global head of distribution Phil Wagstaff, head of UK retail Richard Pursglove, head of credit John Anderson and Paul Graham, head of global alternatives.

Meanwhile, Aviva is to replace Roberts with internal manager of the Aviva Investors UK Equity Fund Chris Murphy who will now manage the UK Equity Income Fund.

Niall Paul, Aviva Investors chief investment officer for equities, said: "This internal appointment reflects the depth of the UK equities team at Aviva Investors and Chris' excellent performance as manager of the Aviva Investors UK Equity Fund, ranked in the twelfth percentile since Chris took responsibility for the fund in July 2006.

"The transition of management will be seamless as the UK equities team employs a common research process which each fund manager on the desk uses to help identify investment opportunities and manage their portfolios."