Woodford Concerns

Zola.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/funds/vanguard-lifestrategy-brexit-has-stopped-us-cutting-back-british/

LHW99

Not quite sure why HL is putting pressure on, when they couldn't / didn't take a proper look earlier on.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-7164533/Hargreaves-tells-Woodford-repay-savers-frozen-fund-soon-possible.html
Stables, doors and horses come to mind.

talexuser

This bilge from HL smacks of pure hypocrisy. Their fingers are all over the Wealth 50 stuff after virtually every other platform had issued a sell, some a long time ago. The situation is simple, get a smaller amount of money back now, or give Woodford a chance to wind things up in an orderly manner, and hopefully get some more money back some time later.

We are in the reputation damage stage of HL PR puff now, on the side of our customers (which please now forget we misled), bail our customers out quick, preferably before anyone else.

Brian65

The fact Woodford won't reduce his £100,000 a day fees whilst its closed suggests to me he doesn't expect to re-open it soon?

gadgetmind

Why reopen it at all? It can just sit there funding his fees for decades.

bowlhead99

Brian65 wrote: »

The fact Woodford won't reduce his £100,000 a day fees whilst its closed suggests to me he doesn't expect to re-open it soon?

Well, not that he is earning £100k a day in fees from WEIF, that's just a number rounded up by several tens of thousands to more easily fit into a sound bite ..

He won't be opening it earlier than whenever there's a practical solution to deal with the liquidity issues. So, no time soon, as there are plenty of assets needing to be sold down, and some will be tricky to sell.

But in the meantime, his company is managing the fund and contractually still gets paid for managing it. His fees cost the investors something like 0.05% a month. A twentieth of a percent per month is not really going to damage investors' wealth.

What would probably damage the investors' wealth rather more would be if everyone at Woodford stopped working on making orderly disposals and keeping a sense of structure in the fund and just downed tools because they had no income.

Brian65

bowlhead99 wrote: »

Well, not that he is earning £100k a day in fees from WEIF, that's just a number rounded up by several tens of thousands to more easily fit into a sound bite ..

I thought it was per working day Mon-Fri
Point is that once the fund is wound up his career is over.
So he has a vested interest in spinning the job out

Brian65

gadgetmind wrote: »

Why reopen it at all? It can just sit there funding his fees for decades.

Indeed. And he can keep the assets at their claimed valuations, rather than the prices people will pay for them.

Brian65

bowlhead99 wrote: »

What would probably damage the investors' wealth rather more would be if everyone at Woodford stopped working on making orderly disposals and keeping a sense of structure in the fund and just downed tools because they had no income.

I suppose in that situation the assets would be sold to the highest bidder?
In which case we would find out what they are worth instead of trusting Woodford to get more?

Aretnap

Brian65 wrote: »

I suppose in that situation the assets would be sold to the highest bidder?
In which case we would find out what they are worth instead of trusting Woodford to get more?

A bankruptcy sale, or something close to it, is not the best way to establish the true value of assets, still less extract that true value.