Mr Nutt, who turns 60 next year, will stop managing the £1.9bn Jupiter Income Trust, one of the company's largest unit trusts, in the new year after nearly 12 years. Mr Nutt will also step down from running the Jupiter High Income fund from July 1 next year. Philip Matthews, manager of the company's Growth and Income fund, will take over as lead manager. A spokeswoman said he will also continue to work on a number of other projects for the group. Mr Nutt joined Jupiter in 1996 from Robert Fleming. His first City job was with Foster & Braithwaite, the broker. In 1983 he moved into fund management and took a position at UK Provident. He took over Jupiter's equity income franchise in 2000 from William Littlewood, one of the top performing equity income managers during the nineties, who now runs the Artemis Strategic Assets Fund. Mr Nutt has built a strong reputation, returning investors 20 per cent more than the sector average over his tenure. However, the fund's performance has suffered in recent years. The Jupiter Income Trust returned 0.1 per cent over the past five years, compared to the IMA UK Equity Income sector average of 10 per cent. Jason Hollands of BestInvest, the financial adviser, noted that the fund has underperformed over one, three and five years. "Over recent years the performance has been disappointing," he said. The fund was once Jupiter's largest unit trust, but it has now been taken over by the company's Merlin income, which has £4bn in assets under management. The recent poor performance of Mr Nutt's fund has led many advisers to remove it from their "buy" lists. Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea Financial Services, said it has held a "hold" rating on the fund for a while. However, advisers welcomed the appointment of Mr Whitmore, pointing towards his strong record at both Jupiter and in his former role at Schroders. "We see this change of manager as a positive move for investors as Ben Whitmore has a similar investment style and will bring greater focus on managing the fund," said Adrian Lowcock, head of investment research at Hargreaves Lansdown.