The leave of absence will commence on 18 June and Lyttleton is due to return to BlackRock on 17 September, an announcement from the firm to its clients said.
While he is away Nick Osborne will continue to manage the UK Absolute Alpha Fund, having co-managed the fund since January 2008 and Adam Avigdori will run the UK Dynamic Fund. Avigdori also co-manages the BlackRock UK Income fund "and therefore has experience in managing UK long-only equity portfolios", BlackRock said.
Back in February, when Nick Little was appointed sole manager of the £463m BlackRock UK Fund, the fund house was at pains to say there would be no change to Lyttleton’s other responsibilities.
The move would allow him to focus on the higher alpha strategies he co-manages, Tony Stenning, BlackRock’s head of UK retail, said at the time.
The UK Absolute Alpha Fund was one of the original funds in the absolute return space, launched in 2005 with Lyttleton at the Helm.
It had a very strong performance in its first few years, but has floundered at various stages since the financial crisis.
At the start of this year Lyttleton wrote to investors to apologise for its poor performance in 2011 and year to date it has improved.
But there have been suggestions from some that Lyttleton has come off the boil and this represents the start of a "phasing out" process by BlackRock.
