Woodford Concerns

AnotherJoe

Reaper wrote: »

I don't think it's that simple. Rossi is a fraud. However I think IH was genuinely trying to make the E-cat work and they are genuinely trying other technologies too. I just wish I knew what they were in case any of them do actually have a chance of working. I don't think they are a Theranos.

Personally I suspect the long term NAV of IH will end up at zero, but through gullibility rather than fraud.

Rossi is the initial (twice convicted so far AIUI) fraudster. If IH havent worked out yet they've been had yet in a third fraud, then I see no merit to buying shares in a company run by gullible fools based on a fraud! . Whether its gullibility or they are deliberately extending the fraud doesnt matter.


Hopefully for WPCT holders this will give Woodford an ability to sell to great fools asap. Time will tell.

tin586

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.

The HL CEO’s letter to the Chair of the Select Committee asserts that there were no commercial conflicts of interest in having Woodford on its wealth list.

The fact is HL obtained discounted fees from him (for the benefit of their clients, of course).

One business does not provide another with a free lunch. It would be reasonable for Woodford to expect, for example, that the discounts would result in a certain level of business resulting.

Perhaps the Select Committee could ask HL to outline the key commercial aspects of their contract with Woodford in respect of the discounted fees.

Thrugelmir

tin586 wrote: »

The HL CEO’s letter to the Chair of the Select Committee asserts that there were no commercial conflicts of interest in having Woodford on its wealth list.

The fact is HL obtained discounted fees from him (for the benefit of their clients, of course).

One business does not provide another with a free lunch. It would be reasonable for Woodford to expect, for example, that the discounts would result in a certain level of business resulting.

Perhaps the Select Committee could ask HL to outline the key commercial aspects of their contract with Woodford in respect of the discounted fees.

When you've £91.6 billion of funds under management. To create a top 50 list you would be somewhat restricted. Only so many funds of significant scale that are open to high levels of new funding.

redux

redux wrote: »

Or conversely, whether his decision to strike out on his own was due to what he regarded as constraints imposed by other influences in the firm, and we might now wonder whether some of those were do with governance rules or standards.

He's been stepping sideways around the rules for some time, such as all the swaps and the Guernsey listing. Would Invesco Perpetual, later just Invesco, have indulged such stunts?

I found an article in the back of Private Eye which summarises much of the Woodford saga, and a couple of paragraphs may or may not go towards my rhetorical questions above.

The FCA has been here before in 2014, it says, having fined Invesco Perpetual for breaching investment restrictions, exposing investors to greater levels of risk than they had been led to expect, 33 times exceeding investment limits in a company, and also inadequately disclosed use of up to £1bn of gearing.

Fine £18.6M, record for an asset manager. Woodford ran 2 of the 3 income funds involved. Weeks later he launched his own fund.

fun4everyone

tin586 wrote: »

One business does not provide another with a free lunch. It would be reasonable for Woodford to expect, for example, that the discounts would result in a certain level of business resulting.

Perhaps the Select Committee could ask HL to outline the key commercial aspects of their contract with Woodford in respect of the discounted fees.

There was a guarantee from HL to funnel money into the Woodford funds (via their multi manager crap) if he gave them a discount, the relevant posts and links are in this thread.

It certainly did not amount to a "contract" but it's come out since the suspension.

StellaN

itwasntme001 wrote: »

hahahahaahahahahaha. i wouldn't be surprised. he is such a fool.

I really feel at this stage we shouldn't make personal attacks on NW, I don't think the forum is the right place for that. As well as calling him a 'fool' you also made these quotes in other posts 'At least the results show clearly he is completely incompetent' and 'Its more about just simply being a very bad fund manager'.

Whatever our feelings in the current situation, NW has been a fund manager for a very long time and has made many people quite a lot of money (myself included). I don't hold any of his new funds mainly because of his change in investment style and, I do feel, for those people that are now trapped in the suspended WEI fund. However, I still feel this is not the place for personal attacks especially with such quotes 'he is is such a fool', 'a very bad fund manager' and 'he is completely incompetent'!

tin586

fun4everyone wrote: »

There was a guarantee from HL to funnel money into the Woodford funds (via their multi manager crap) if he gave them a discount, the relevant posts and links are in this thread.

It certainly did not amount to a "contract" but it's come out since the suspension.

Seems unusual that a FTSE100 company would enter into an arrangement and not set it down in writing, but if that’s indeed the case, that is interesting in itself.

When you refer to “relevant posts” you are pointing to speculation and allegation, including from rivals. To properly hold HL to account, facts are needed. The Select Committee is in a powerful position to demand same straight from the horse’s mouth.

bowlhead99

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Rossi is the initial (twice convicted so far AIUI) fraudster. If IH havent worked out yet they've been had yet in a third fraud, then I see no merit to buying shares in a company run by gullible fools based on a fraud! . Whether its gullibility or they are deliberately extending the fraud doesnt matter.

Not sure they are in the situation where they 'haven't worked out they've been had yet'. Rossi is known for being difficult to work with and embellishing the facts when making bold claims. Without spending some time and money, you can't assess it. It got to the point where having tested it and got inadequate results, IH ended up in a legal battle with Rossi over the license, business, payments etc which is well documented because they both submitted court docs even though they didn't get a court judgement.

Rather than prolong the agony in a public court spat at great cost, they reached a settlement in which they surrendered the license and gave the tech back. From Rossi's perspective it was a a bit of a win because now he has his 'IP' back he can try to sell it again to someone else - if anyone will touch it - without it being entangled with the IH business. From IH's perspective it is also a bit of a win compared to how it could have ended up, as they are rid of him, didn't need to keep the tech which they had confirmed wasn't good enough to develop, and didn't need to pay him truckloads of cash to extricate themselves from the deal. Just take back your invention and leave us to work with other people without sharing the spoils with you.

So, almost a win win, after the wasted time and costs, compared to how it could have been (eg needing to keep spending Woodford or other people's money down this particular cul-de-sac).

Whom do you mean is 'deliberately extending the fraud' here? You mention you "see no merit to buying shares in a company run by gullible fools based on a fraud!", but you confirmed hundreds of posts ago that you are not buying the shares anyway because everything is a lie and you think Woodford is an idiot who never conducts due diligence into investments he makes, so it was already pretty clear you don't see merit in it

Brian65

cogito wrote: »

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.

So what other funds are HL recommending in their 'Wealth 50' that they have concerns about?

fun4everyone

Some clarity around the complete scam that is the valuations of unquoted equities in weif/wpct

https://citywire.co.uk/funds-insider/news/link-feels-heat-over-valuation-of-woodfords-unquoted-stocks/a1242137

The value of Woodford's stake in Industrial Heat, a controversial business attempting to develop cold fusion technology that is viewed with deep scepticism by the scientific community, was hiked by 357% in one fell swoop in September last year. The company is the fifth biggest contributor to Woodford Equity Income's performance in the lifetime of the fund.

Benevolent AI, which is developing artificial intelligence to analyse scientific papers, has been revalued 600% higher since Woodford first invested