Woodford Concerns

talexuser

capital0ne wrote: »

Luckily no self respecting IFA would ever have recommended any Woodford fund

At least for a year, and some before that. HL stand out as the exception.

Thrugelmir

arnoldy wrote: »

We already see pricing pressure on the Woodford funds with sort sellers breaking cover and the difficulty of liquidating such big positions in small companies. That’s before the difficulty of selling big positions in untraded early start-up companies eg Industrial Heat. We may have shocks coming there. I hope not as an investor but am not hopeful.

Offloading a large holding of a liquid quoted stock can result in a lower realisable value. As is a buyers market. SMT's holding in Tesla is valued at over £300 million. Offloading such a line of stock (should the decision be made to sell out entirely) would require a lot of phone calls to place the stock .

talexuser

If anyone missed the tin586 post in the Hargreaves thread:

"FT is reporting that Mark Dampier is to retire from HL."

After all those sleepless nights worrying about Woodford, at least he'll have a good few million quid to show for it.

Audaxer

coyrls wrote: »

Can't see any experienced and professional investors holding any HL MM funds.

Maybe not a lot of professional investors, but it could affect a heck of a lot of investors, as looking at the HL site, the HL MM Income and Growth Fund is £2,934M in size, of which the Woodford Equity Income Fund holding is 14.04%.

dividendhero

Audaxer wrote: »

, but it could affect a heck of a lot of investors, as looking at the HL site, the HL MM Income and Growth Fund is £2,934M in size, of which the Woodford Equity Income Fund holding is 14.04%.

For background - The unquoted Woodford element of the fund is just £74m or 2.5%. That's within a daily price swing. As folk on here are saying, the danger is that people redeem the HL Inc & Gwth fund which will increase the weighting of Woodford for remaining investors, I believe HL can impose exit levies before gating

Telegraph has since corrected the article, but yesterday it was plain wrong. It said largest exposure among the HL MM stable was high income - it actually has no exposure to the gated fund, but does have some exposure to the Woodford income focus fund, which is still open and doesn't have any of the unquoted exposure. They'd omitted the HL MM Income and growth fund entirely, which is actually the most exposed fund! If financial journos get mixed up, what chance has Joe Public?

Audaxer

dividendhero wrote: »

For background - The unquoted Woodford element of the fund is just £74m or 2.5%. That's within a daily price swing. As folk on here are saying, the danger is that people redeem the HL Inc & Gwth fund which will increase the weighting of Woodford for remaining investors, I believe HL can impose exit levies before gating

Yes, it will be interesting to see what happens with the MM Income and Growth fund, as I think a lot of investors could panic when see the Woodford holding is 14.04% , not realising that the unquoted element is only 2.5%.

dividendhero

A bit more on the Guernsey angle, according to the head of Guernsey Stock Exchange they approached the UK FCA raising concerns about Woodfords listing and suspended the shares. The FCA didn't respond so they relisted them. Also there's been not one of Wordfords shares traded.

Begs a couple of questions
(1) Did he devise this ruse himself or did someone advise him?
(2) Has any other open ended fund tried this trick?

A Guernsey listing seems to offer all sorts of possibilities from circumventing FCA rules to generating false losses for IHT & GCT purposes :eek:

ANGLICANPAT

Barnard who took over Woodfords old fund Perpetual High Income apparently holds on to c20% of the same funds as Woodfords current income one . Perpetual income is c40% invested in financials , I wonder if in addition to the overlapping 20% of funds, Barnard has also invested in the stricken Woodford funds since they are so close in their thinking.

dividendhero

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

Barnard who took over Woodfords old fund Perpetual High Income apparently holds on to c20% of the same funds as Woodfords current income one . Perpetual income is c40% invested in financials , I wonder if in addition to the overlapping 20% of funds, Barnard has also invested in the stricken Woodford funds since they are so close in their thinking.

Think you'll find it's Barnett, not Barnard


A few seconds on google reveal that neither Perpetual Income or high income have any significant holdings in either Woodford or unquoted assets.

You're not a financial correspondent for the Daily Telegraph are you by any chance?

BTW it would be interesting to know what Martin Arbyb makes of this - he set up the Perpetual High Income & income funds, Woodford simply inherited much of the portfolio from him

arnoldy

dividendhero wrote: »

A bit more on the Guernsey angle, according to the head of Guernsey Stock Exchange they approached the UK FCA raising concerns about Woodfords listing and suspended the shares. The FCA didn't respond so they relisted them. Also there's been not one of Wordfords shares traded.

Begs a couple of questions
(1) Did he devise this ruse himself or did someone advise him?
(2) Has any other open ended fund tried this trick?

A Guernsey listing seems to offer all sorts of possibilities from circumventing FCA rules to generating false losses for IHT & GCT purposes :eek:

Hmm. Isn't it the role of ASX listed (Woodford paid) Link Solutions to ensure prices are not artificially supported by bogus listings. But I'm not sure the FCA has much remit, as Link is not a UK domiciled business. Anyway they were sleeping on the job at the time.