Helge Skibeli, the fund manager who helped transform JPMorgan Global Growth, will retire in February 2028

Helge Skibeli, lead manager of JPMorgan Global Growth & Income (JGGI), JP Morgan’s £3.3bn flagship investment trust, has announced he will retire in 18 months’ time.

Skibeli, who is credited with reviving the 149-year-old closed-end fund when he took over seven years ago, will leave JP Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) in February 2028 after 40 years in investment.

His responsibilities will transition to co-managers Sam Witherow and James Cook, said JGGI’s board, which thanked the manager for his stewardship.

A former head of developed market equity research at JPMAM, Skibeli moved JGGI to a more “style-agnostic” approach, after he replaced Jeroen Huysinga, who had managed the trust for 10 years.

Positioning it as an “all-weather” fund that could do well in a variety of market conditions, Skibeli oversaw a 176% underlying investment return from March 2019 to the end of August. This beat the 151% advance in the MSCI AC World index, according to Winterflood, the trust’s broker.

Data from the Association of Investment Companies shows JGGI leads its Global Equity Income sector over 10 years with a 287.8% total shareholder return that tops the 167.6% average return from the six-strong peer group.

Strong performance, share issuance and four takeovers, including the mergers with the Scottish and Henderson International Income trusts in 2022 and 2025, combined to lift JGGI’s market value from the £452m it stood at when Skibeli took over. During his time, the trust’s board was overseen by Nigel Wightman, Tristan Hillgarth and the current chair James Macpherson.

Over one and three years, however, its returns have been overtaken by Murray International (MYI) and Invesco Global Equity Income (IGET) as JGGI has become a bit more cautious of valuations in the technology sector but remains positive on markets overall.

Skibeli, who studied at the BI Norwegian Business School in Oslo before taking an MBA in Finance and Investments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spent most of his career at JP Morgan. He joined the firm in 1990 as a European industrials analyst and was promoted to head of Asia equity research and portfolio management in 1998 before moving to head up US equity research in 2001 and then global head of equity research in 2015.

No changes to JGGI are expected with Macpherson stating the board’s confidence that the portfolio managers would continue to implement the strategy in accordance with the objective of beating the MSCI benchmark over the long term. Cook has worked on the team since 2023 with Witherow joining last year.