Verdon-Roe has taken extended leave to address some health problems and will leave Haymarket, the largest independent publisher in the UK and owner of in June next year.
In the interim he will provide advice to the business in a non-executive capacity as deputy chairman of the Media Group.
Lord Heseltine, chairman of Haymarket Group, said: "In July next year, Eric will have worked for Haymarket for a third of a century.
"During that time he has led a transformation of the company from a UK centric business and consumer magazine publisher into a multi-media, multi-national media group.
"His career took him from his first role as a junior sales executive on What Car? to the managing directorship of the entire group -- a role he has performed since May 2001.
"He has been personally responsible for many parts of the company during his career and has been instrumental in the launch and acquisition of many of Haymarket's most important brands.
"I am very grateful to Eric. He assumed the reins of what was then a large small company. With his vision and professionalism he has steered it through its evolution into its world wide pre-eminence as a small large company operating to the highest standards in this fast changing media industry."
Eric Verdon-Roe remarked: "Having spent all my working life at Haymarket it is a big wrench to stand down as managing director.
"I have enjoyed my time here enormously, above all I have made many friends who I greatly admire and respect.
"The company has always attracted wonderful, independent thinking, creative people who have built some tremendous brands and I am enormously proud of what we have created together.
"Looking forward, I believe that the senior management team is immensely impressive and they will be more than capable of continuing to build on the company’s past achievements and weather the current tough trading conditions.
"I would like to thank them all for all the support and help that they have given me."
In Verdon-Roe’s absence the group has been run under the effective control of a senior managing directors' committee on a weekly basis under Lord Heseltine’s chairmanship and this arrangement will continue.
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