William de Winton is handing over the management of Lansdowne Partners’ $640 million Global Financials hedge fund, although he has told clients he intends to remain an active partner at the firm, according to an investor letter seen by Financial News.

De Winton's fund has generated an annualised compound return of 10.6%, against 4.6% from the MSCI World index, since its launch in 2004, when de Winton quit as a Morgan Stanley analyst to join Lansdowne.