Mark Lyttleton (pictured) is set to leave BlackRock at the end of April and will hand over his management responsibilities on March 28.
Nick Little will take over management of the £625.5m UK Dynamic fund and Nigel Ridge has been appointed as co-manager of the £427m UK Absolute Alpha fund along with Nick Osborne.
Investment Adviser revealed Sanlam Private Investments UK had sold out of Mark Lyttleton’s £432.9m BlackRock UK Absolute Alpha fund in recent weeks in spite of upping its exposure to absolute return funds.
The discretionary manager had been invested in Mr Lyttleton’s fund since it was launched back in 2005, but sold out recently due to its consistent underperformance relative to rival products.
Elsewhere, BlackRock is proposing to merge the UK Dynamic fund into the £513.6m BlackRock UK fund, subject to FSA and unitholder approval.
Mr Lyttleton had taken a three-month break from managing his funds in May 2012 after poor numbers but performance has failed to improve since his return.
Tony Stenning, head of UK retail at BlackRock, commented: “We continually review the range of funds that we offer to clients and look to ensure that our products are relevant for their needs in these times of low yields.
”We wish Mark well for the future and thank him for all his efforts over the last two decades.”
Mr Lyttleton joined BlackRock as a graduate trainee and took over management of the UK fund in 2001, the UK Dynamic fund in 2003, and then managed the UK Absolute Alpha fund from its launch in 2005.
In spite of strong initial performance, Mr Lyttleton’s funds have underperformed recently, with both UK Dynamic and UK Absolute Alpha in the bottom quartile of their sectors in one, three and five years.
Mr Lyttleton handed over sole management of the UK fund to Mr Little in February 2012, and the fund is in the third quartile of the IMA UK All Companies sector in the past year.
