His departure comes as the firm moves to combine responsibility for its corporate and investment trust company secretarial functions under the new position of head of funds client service and group company secretary. Marrack Tonkin, who is currently head of F&C’s Edinburgh office and group company secretary, has been appointed to this new role.

Tonkin is an accountant with many years experience in company administration and secretarial services, the firm said.

“There will be no change in the overall structure of F&C’s investment trust business or service levels as a result of this development. As announced in June this year, Ed Morse has been appointed to the new position of head of investment trust business development with a brief to focus on growth opportunities," the firm said.

F&C Asset Management manages around £103.2 billion (around $162.9 billion) of assets.