Woodford Concerns

itwasntme001

Does anyone know if the woodford equity INC (not ACC) fund actually paid any dividends? I bought this fund in an ISA back in 2016 and sold last year for a small loss. However looking at the transaction history on the broker page i cant seem to see any dividends paid from the woodford fund. Maybe the dividends were fully used to pay the fund management fee? I should know but i really cant remember!

bowlhead99

itwasntme001 wrote: »

Does anyone know if the woodford equity INC (not ACC) fund actually paid any dividends? I bought this fund in an ISA back in 2016 and sold last year for a small loss. However looking at the transaction history on the broker page i cant seem to see any dividends paid from the woodford fund. Maybe the dividends were fully used to pay the fund management fee? I should know but i really cant remember!

The money won't have been used to pay the fund management fee, because the dividends are paid out of the fund after all the management fee has been paid by the fund for the relevant period. But feasibly you might have spent some of the dividend income paying your ISA investment platform management fees.

With many brokers the dividend payments are not on the 'transaction history' page because you are not doing a purchase transaction or a sales transaction. The income should be visible in your 'cash account' though (the income part of your cash account, if the broker splits between income and capital as some do).

My mum has a few thousand pounds worth of WEIF (Inc version) in her ISA and did receive quarterly dividends over that time period. You can see the history for all the share classes at https://woodfordfunds.com/funds/weif/income-history/

itwasntme001

bowlhead99 wrote: »

The money won't have been used to pay the fund management fee, because the dividends are paid out of the fund after all the management fee has been paid by the fund for the relevant period. But feasibly you might have spent some of the dividend income paying your ISA investment platform management fees.

With many brokers the dividend payments are not on the 'transaction history' page because you are not doing a purchase transaction or a sales transaction. The income should be visible in your 'cash account' though (the income part of your cash account, if the broker splits between income and capital as some do).

My mum has a few thousand pounds worth of WEIF (Inc version) in her ISA and did receive quarterly dividends over that time period. You can see the history for all the share classes at https://woodfordfunds.com/funds/weif/income-history/

Thanks Bowlhead. No the dividends were certainly not used to pay the broker fee (the dividend amount is multiples of the broker fee). Also there are a couple of other income funds that all do show dividends being received in the transaction history. The broker is interactive investor.


So still confusing why the dividends do not show up in the history.

itwasntme001

If it helps it is the C (inc) class of the fund. It shows in the transaction history that the fund was bought in 2016 and the description being "CF WOOD EQ INC C Del....". But no dividends received for this fund ever since i bought until it was sold in 2018.

LHW99

The broker is interactive investor.

Query it with them, if you get a nonsense reply, keep asking. I have had odd dividends missing, and then paid twice in one month, dividends paid late and a few other things. They have been better lately, but not absolutely perfect!

Malthusian

itwasntme001 wrote: »

The broker is interactive investor.

So still confusing why the dividends do not show up in the history.

Mystery solved. As per LHW.

itwasntme001

bowlhead99 wrote: »

The money won't have been used to pay the fund management fee, because the dividends are paid out of the fund after all the management fee has been paid by the fund for the relevant period. But feasibly you might have spent some of the dividend income paying your ISA investment platform management fees.

With many brokers the dividend payments are not on the 'transaction history' page because you are not doing a purchase transaction or a sales transaction. The income should be visible in your 'cash account' though (the income part of your cash account, if the broker splits between income and capital as some do).

My mum has a few thousand pounds worth of WEIF (Inc version) in her ISA and did receive quarterly dividends over that time period. You can see the history for all the share classes at https://woodfordfunds.com/funds/weif/income-history/

Are the dividends stated in this link net of the fund fee? I assume so as it states "net distribution" but wanted to double check.

itwasntme001

LHW99 wrote: »

Query it with them, if you get a nonsense reply, keep asking. I have had odd dividends missing, and then paid twice in one month, dividends paid late and a few other things. They have been better lately, but not absolutely perfect!

Will do thanks - good to know its not just me and that it seems likely an error on the part of II. Not sure how i would have missed around 2k in dividends but there you go. I guess i should check for all the other stocks that pay dividends, so annoying!

Malthusian

hamishdog wrote: »

• What is anyone's guess what this fund will be worth when the suspension is lifted? I assume if you could be bothered to value all the current investments you could work this out.
• Will there be a mad dash to get money out, how will "system" cope with a mad scramble?
• If you want to re balance how many people will be buying this fund - not too sure if I am joking?
• Will it ever recover?

The answer to all four questions is: it will never be lifted, once Woodford is done delaying the inevitable, the fund will wind up and return whatever cash can be realised to unitholders. There will therefore be no mad dash to get out, everyone will remain stuck in until the fund winds up.

The only way wind up can be avoided is if Woodford manages to sell the unlisted rubbish (bringing the fund back under the 10% maximum while still meeting outstanding withdrawal requests) and investors don't all rush for the exits as soon as the suspension is lifted, which takes an implausible leap of faith.

Usually when illiquid funds are wound down, they are wound down gradually over a period of several years, with distributions made periodically to unitholders. How many ps in the £ investors will get back will only be known once they've had their final distribution and the fund is no more.

As a general point, even if the fund wasn't going to wind up, it wouldn't matter how many people want to buy the fund. In any open-ended fund, like Woodford Equity Income, the manager creates and destroys shares at will, depending on inflows / outflows, while selling the fund's assets to meet net outflows.

Naturally if nobody wants to buy the fund and enough existing investors want to sell, the fund becomes unviable and has to be wound up.

talexuser

aberlyfid_2000 wrote: »

we can all wax lyrical here but the fact remains, woodford and his funds have been an unmitigated disaster

Yes, the 350% he made me in Perpetual over around 16 years was pathetic (with an insignificant amount of Barnett right at the end), and the 30% he made me over 3 years in his own fund was even worse.