Ayaz Ebrahim has stepped down as lead manager of JPMorgan Asia Growth & Income (JAGI ) after his promotion to head up JP Morgan Asset Management’s (JPMAM)  Southeast Asia business.

Ebrahim left the £285m investment trust with immediate effect this week after eight years on the Asia Pacific equities portfolio.

His departure comes nine months after he became chief executive of Singapore and Southeast Asia for JPMAM, a move that saw him step back from JPMorgan Indian (JII ) and leave the £706m trust in the hands of co-managers Amit Mehta and Sandip Patodia.

JPMorgan Asia Growth & Income will be run by Robert Lloyd, a co-manager for six years in Hong Kong, and Pauline Ng, head of JPMAM’s ASEAN team in Singapore, who joined the team in August.

The trust’s chair Richard Stagg thanked Ebrahim for his ‘significant contribution’ and said the board had ‘been impressed with the nascent partnership between Lloyd and Ng and sees it as hugely complementary given their locations and experience’.

After a difficult three years, JAGI has bounced back this year, with a 16.2% total shareholder return against the 13.1% from its benchmark, the MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex-Japan index. 

Over three years, the trust has dropped 4.5%, with dividends from the 4%-yielder included, but over 10 years it has returned a total of 139.8%, which beats the 123.5% average of its peer group.

The shares stand 8.3% below net asset value, a narrower discount than the one-year average of 9.4% and the peer group average of 11.5%.