The London-listed fund management group's investment chief, John Chatfield-Roberts, will hand over to Stephen Pearson.

UK fund house Jupiter has promoted investment head Stephen Pearson to chief investment officer.

Pearson, who joined Jupiter back in 2001 and was appointed as deputy investment chief in 2012, most recently served as head of investments. He takes on the CIO role, replacing John Chatfeild-Roberts, who will now focus on the Jupiter Merlin multi-manager portfolios, the largest of group's investment strategies with assets of over £8 billion. Chatfeild-Roberts will remain a director of Jupiter Fund Management.

“Jupiter has grown substantially and the assets managed by the Jupiter Merlin team have doubled since I became CIO in 2010. I have encouraged Stephen to take the lead on managing the investment team so it is a natural evolution for him to take on the role,” said Chatfeild-Roberts.

John Monaghan, senior investment research analyst, Square Mile Investment Consulting and Research, commented on the news that Chatfeild-Roberts is to step down.

“Over recent years the landscape for multi asset investing has changed - the introduction of multi asset income and risk targeted funds for example, has brought generally lower-cost and more outcome-orientated products to the market which directly compete with more traditionally managed funds and funds of funds. With competition for viable solutions ever increasing, we view the decision of John Chatfeild-Roberts to pass on his CIO responsibilities to Stephen Pearson, thus allowing him to focus solely on the Merlin fund range, as a positive. Together with Algy Smith-Maxwell, Mr Chatfeild-Roberts, in our view, has built one of the strongest funds of funds propositions available in the UK market place and we continue to support the team's Income, Balanced and Growth funds with AAA ratings.”

In its recent half-year results statement, Jupiter Fund Management reported a 74 per cent year-on-year rise in pre-tax profit to £84 million ($129 million), largely thanks to growth in the company's core mutual fund franchise.