Alan Harden, the chief executive of underperforming Alliance Trust, is to leave the Dundee-based investment trust later this year to head up ING Investment Management's Asia-Pacific unit.

Alan Harden, the chief executive of underperforming Alliance Trust, is to leave the Dundee-based investment trust later this year to head up ING Investment Management's Asia-Pacific unit. US-born Harden, the former head of Asia-Pacific at Citigroup Asset Management and previously head of investment services at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, joined Alliance in 2004, but will quit the company some time "in the autumn" at a date "yet to be agreed".

A spokeswoman yesterday said no decision had been made on a replacement for Harden, but added that there would be a "handover period" and an announcement would be "forthcoming".

After his departure, the most well-known senior figure at the group will be Katherine Garrett-Cox, the chief investment officer who joined from Morley in 2007.

The performance at Alliance under the stewardship of Harden has at times been chequered and pedestrian.

Over the course of 2007, the trust lost 8.6% against a 7% reverse for the FTSE world index. It was behind its peer group average in the global growth sector over one, three, five and 10 years.

In April, the 120-year-old trust also revealed that its net asset value finished the year down 4.6%, with total shareholder return down 5.6% - albeit ahead of the AllShare index's decline of 6.6%.

Harden was also instrumental in growing the Alliance Trust Savings business, which has grown both in customer numbers and revenue in his four years as chief executive.

Alliance, which is the UK's biggest investment trust with around £2.7bn in assets, in 2005 introduced a controversial bonus incentive scheme for executives, paving the way for significantly higher director rewards.

Harden saw his total remuneration jump from £324,775 to £447,518 last year, in spite of achieving only 27.5% of his potential bonus.

The long-term incentive plan target of a 7% total return, which must be met to trigger share vesting in 2010, was not met during the year to January 31, 2008 because Alliance posted a negative total return.

In a statement, Harden said: "Having created a sound platform for the company's future and put in place a strong management team which I am confident will take Alliance Trust forward, the time is right for me to take up this challenging new role."

The fund is now trading at a 19% discount to net asset value and has traded at an average discount of 17% over the past year.