* Head of global fixed income defects to JP Morgan-sources
* Gartside to remain at Schroders until year end
LONDON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Schroders' head of global fixed income is to move to rival JP Morgan, sources said, where he will run assets many times larger than his existing business.
Schroders said in a statement that Nick Gartside would be leaving at the end of the year, while sources close to Schroders and JP Morgan said he is headed to the U.S. banking group.
At Schroders he ran funds with assets of around 2.2 billion pounds ($3.4 billion), a small part of the firm's 164 billion in funds under management, while JP Morgan is one of the world's largest fixed income managers with around $800 billion globally.
Gartside's own funds have had a mixed run of late, up 6 percent on average but underperforming rival funds by an average of 1.4 percentage points since the beginning of the year. His 160 million pound Strategic Bond fund was underperforming peers by 4.6 percentage points over the period.
His responsibilities and management of the funds will be split between the existing team that he currently heads, Schroders said in a statement.
Gartside's move follows in the footsteps of Bob Michele, former global head of fixed income at Schroders who moved to JP Morgan in 2008, where he is currently global chief investment officer of fixed income.
A spokesman at JP Morgan declined to comment.
Schroders has seen strong inflows of new money this year but Gartside's move follows more high profile departures earlier in the year.
In May, two top performing equity fund managers, Nick Purves and Ian Lance -- who ran the 1.5 billion pound ($2.2 billion) Schroder Income fund, left to join rival firm RWC Partners.
One month later, Schroders said it had acquired a 49 percent stake in RWC. (Reporting by Chris Vellacott; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter) ($1 = 0.6488 pound) (For the Funds Hub blog: http://blogs.reuters.com/hedgehub) (For Global Investing: http://blogs.reuters.com/globalinvesting)