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Mr Philbin was head of fund of funds at F&C and had been with the company since 2001.

It is thought he will be taking on the role of chief investment officer at an as-yet unnamed multi-manager specialist company, which has been backed by Axa and Winterthur Wealth Management.

Axa has already confirmed that Winterthur's Mike Kellard will be chief executive of the new business, with Ian Colquhoun from Axa taking the role of managing director.

Mr Philbin had been in charge of £1bn in multi-manager products, including the £115m Multi Manager Balanced fund, the £103m Multi Manager Cautious fund and the £399m Multi Manager Distribution fund. Over the last three years to 21 April, the funds are respectively in the fourth, second and fourth quartiles, according to Morningstar.

The manager's resignation appeared to have come as a surprise to F&C.

A spokesperson for the company said: "There had been rumours about Mr Philbin's future but we were assured he was committed to his future here. However, things have changed this week, and in his departure we have appointed Dean Cheeseman as head of multi-manager."

Mr Cheeseman was co-head of multi-manager, having been hired by F&C last December.

Prior to this, he was head of developed markets at Forsyth Partners where he was responsible for mutual fund research across a range of geographies and previous to this he worked at Morgan Stanley Quilter.

The spokesperson added: "Mr Cheeseman has been in place already for a number of months so is well able to take on the new role. He will stick to using the same methods used before, such as the traffic light analysis, which is used to screen and narrow down funds for investment."

F&C's traffic light analysis is the quant screening process behind the multi-manager range, which assigns potential funds a red, amber or green light for a number of criteria.

The spokesperson maintained that F&C would continue to place great importance on its multi-manager range, and would be making new hires to reflect this.

Darius McDermott, managing director of London-based IFA firm Chelsea Financial Services, said: "It will be a slight blow as Mr Philbin has done a very good job raising lots of assets over the last few years for F&C, but the company is lucky in the fact that it has a ready-formed co-head in Mr Cheeseman."