New Woodford Fund

Ryan_Futuristics

Still, it has the potential to be larger and more attractive to investors than your average private equity fund

I think it could bridge the gap between non-£billionaire investors and a lot of these smaller companies and startups

But I've still no idea what kind of performance to expect ... I almost invested in Chris Rice's Sanditon IT when it launched recently, and performance so far has been very unlike his regular funds, and it's hard to tell whether it'll be an experiment that pays off

bowlhead99

Ryan_Futuristics wrote: »

Still, it has the potential to be larger and more attractive to investors than your average private equity fund

I think it could bridge the gap between non-£billionaire investors and a lot of these smaller companies and startups

Yes, more attractive to retail investors maybe - because of the inclusion of the big chunk of well known listed blue chips and listed smallcaps diluting the focus from being a pure VC/PE holding. Retail investors generally don't get to play in the dedicated VC funds being launched by PE firms for institutions and professionals. By contrast a Woodford IT structure is a mass market fundraising tool.

Having raised £100m for the 'early stage companies' portion they are going to try to throw that cash into the market within two years. The amount he's got to spend is a small amount compared to a typical 'private equity fund', but the typical PE fund is mid market buyouts spending tens or hundreds of millions a deal, so be careful of the distinction between PE generally and VC. At the VC seed/ early stage/ early growth end of the scale, the regular small VC houses would aim to do a few deals a year and be hands-on with their investees. Woodford may need to be more indiscriminate to get his cash deployed.

I almost invested in Chris Rice's Sanditon IT when it launched recently, and performance so far has been very unlike his regular funds, and it's hard to tell whether it'll be an experiment that pays off

I have that one. The performance of a long/short absolute return fund is going to be very unlike his regular funds by design. Currently net short 'industrial cyclicals' and 'growth' while being long-only in 'financials'. Since launch, the NAV has made back its launch costs but that's pretty much it; the SP is at a premium though. The half year report was out this week.

Based on year end factsheets, his 'regular' funds (European and European Select) have a much more Europe focus - the IT is at the last factsheet principally UK, while Sanditon haven't raised much for their UK funds (managed by Tim Russell) as yet - the Select (long/short) UK version only launched in December. Some of the UK bias in the IT might be seed investments for Sanditon's UK funds which they said in their prospectus they'd be allowed to do.

I'll check back on the IT later in the year but for me it is a defensive fund so would expect it to be significantly lagging the general UK/European funds which performed well in the last 6 months. European QE is not helpful for a short portfolio, for example.

masonic

Ryan_Futuristics wrote: »

I suspect once we've got another 10 years data to look back on, Vanguard are gonna need a whole new spiel to sell their products (or they'll have launched their Windsor fund over here)

Interestingly iShares launched their World Value Factor ETF here a few months ago (TER 0.3%) and has a couple of other value-based ETFs available, so perhaps it will be Blackrock that gets to put out a graph showing their "cheap active" funds beating the traditional cap-weighted indices as Vanguard has done in the US.

bowlhead99

Just to mention that Youinvest are advertising this too now, I had an email from them and it's on their homepage. Like the various other platforms and brokers, they've imposed their own deadlines: evening of 7 April for ISA and 10 April for SIPP or unwrapped. So like the others, you have time to wait for the new tax year. They charge their standard dealing fee to process the application.

colsten

Just in case it's of use to anyone: Fidelity offer £110 cashback for new ISA customers via Quidco. Must deposit £5K though, and the offer is set to expire in 5 days time.

TCA

Bestinvest are now accepting applications via an email address, which I find a bit strange. Dealing fee of £7.50. They still aren't listed on the Woodford website as a participating platform:

http://www.bestinvest.co.uk/campaigns/the-woodford-patient-capital-trust-offer-is-now-open

mike88

I invest through Cavendish. Cavendish do not allow applications for this fund to be made through them. In order to buy this fund you have to tick the box on the Funds Network site saying that you do not invest through an adviser. This seems an odd situation but perhaps this means that the holding in this fund is held in a separate Funds Network account and not under my usual Cavendish/Funds network account number. Is this correct?

westy22

I suspect that you will be investing as a direct investor with Fidelity's ShareNetwork as the Woodford IT is a share and not a fund.

EDIT - on reading the Fidelity offer in detail on their website maybe I'm wrong and it will be listed and held in a normal FundsNetwork ISA or Investment Account. Fidelity have never done this before even with their own ITs

InvestInPoker

If anyone's interested he (Neil Woodford) was the guest on BBC's HardTalk program last night (its available on demand on my sky box). The interviewer asked him quite a lot of questions about this new offering.


He's pretty good at the whole PR/advertising side of being a star fund manager of an actively managed investment product imo. Basically 10 minutes of the interview are an advert for patient capital. The other interesting thing he said was that he does not believe the Eurozone will work long term.

mike88

InvestInPoker wrote: »

The other interesting thing he said was that he does not believe the Eurozone will work long term.

Article on this here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2985449/Neil-Woodford-EU-project-flawed-not-viable-current-form.html