Woodford Concerns

MK62

Reaper wrote: »

I suspect the FCA eye may fall more on HL. Towards the end it sounded like they had worries but did not stop recommending his fund to their customers for fear of precipitating the very thing that eventually happened, since their customers made up such a large proportion of the total.

Yes, I'm sure they will have a look at that too......

The FCA is apparently giving evidence to the Treasury Committee next week......and Ms Morgan will shortly have a new boss to impress......

Meanwhile this is an interesting read.......

https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/treasury/Correspondence/2017-19/Letter-from-FCA-Chief-Executive-to-Chair-re-Woodford-180619.pdf

redux

I note that the Citywire article mentioned above, and a similar one at Investment Week, besides the bits about no breach disclosures by Woodford earlier, also have a section where HL claims it asked Link for information on a couple of more recent occasions, and received no replies

https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/3077603/hl-was-not-informed-of-february-2018-breaches-by-woodford

HL also emailed Link Asset Services, the authorised corporate director for the fund, in November 2018, requesting information on their valuation of the unquoted section of the portfolio and their fair value pricing process; HL followed up with Link on this issue again in March.

However, upon trying to discuss the decision to suspend the fund with Link and its approach to valuing the fund's individual provate and illiquid investments while dealing is suspended, and how they might approach reopening the fund, HL came across communication problems, saying: "To date, they have not answered these questions or our concerns."

Does this start to look like a throwing under bus competition for lawyers? At least they are defensively trying to avoid being run over.

dividendhero

HL seemed to have exposure to Woodford that was "too big to fail", I know hindsight's 20:20 and all that - but shouldn't have got themselves into this position..

cogito

fun4everyone wrote: »

Hargreaves Lansdown now revealing some details

https://citywire.co.uk/funds-insider/news/hargreaves-we-challenged-woodford-over-unquoted-stocks-18-months-ago/a1241932



Lol, so HL were telling Neil what to do? Superstar contrarian fund manager! :rotfl:

Seems the connection between WIM and HL was very deep.

But despite all their concerns, HL continued to include WEIF in their Wealth 50. Elsewhere, they say that they recommend particular funds because presented with a huge choice of funds, clients can end up making no decision at all.

That’s all right then.

Malthusian

fun4everyone wrote: »

Lol, so HL were telling Neil what to do? Superstar contrarian fund manager! :rotfl:

The value of a commitment not to break legally binding regulations on unquoted shares in OEICs is also dubious.

If someone gives you a commitment to not do something that they know they shouldn't be doing anyway then you are being played for a mug.

dividendhero

Malthusian wrote: »

The value of a commitment not to break legally binding regulations on unquoted shares in OEICs is also dubious.

.

EU regulations no less, just the kind of "shackles from Brussells" that Brexiteers like Woodford wants to free from

Johnnyboy11

Worth pointing out that Woodford Equty Income continues to lose investors money. Today the price is 95.5p, which is about 15% lower than it was 3-months ago, and there's nothing that current investors can do. It just gets messier and messier.

MK62

dividendhero wrote: »

EU regulations no less, just the kind of "shackles from Brussells" that Brexiteers like Woodford wants to free from

Groan.....I wondered how long it would be before a Brexit angle came into the debate..:(...in any case my understanding is that under the EU Withdrawal Act, existing EU laws and regulations will be transferred over to the UK on exit day (whenever that may be), so this "shackle from Brussels" probably wouldn't go away anyway.......

Zola.

How is Woodford legally allowed to lock out the account for people to withdraw their funds?

Thrugelmir

Zola. wrote: »

How is Woodford legally allowed to lock out the account for people to withdraw their funds?

The fund needs cash to redeem the units. With insufficient liquidity. Then until realisations of assets are made the value of the fund cannot be properly ascertained. Vultures will be circling looking to peck the meat off the bones and buy assets at discounted prices.

Been issues in the past with open ended property funds. At least with IT's trading is far more orderly.