Woodford Concerns

Drp8713

talexuser wrote: »

Today's Questor in the Telegraph, reinforces his hold on HL shares.

Whether this is PR puff or not HL claims Woodford no longer appears in the top 30 enquiries to HLs help desk. So "loyalty" inertia maybe outweighs anger over the consistent Woodford recommend?

If true it's disappointing for the concept of competition - if I was trapped in the gate I would be looking hard at those intermediaries who put Woodford on their sell lists a year ago, and not pay HL any more fees on my total portfolio.

But how many people would really be that bady affected?

You would have to do all of the following:

Used the Wealth 50 to build your portfolio
Ignored all of the main investment sectors except UK Equity Income (otherwise you would have sub 10% in WEI and any losses would be 2-3% of portfolio max)
Not have reviewed your holding's performance (if you didnt notice years of underperformance would you notice the removal from the Wealth 50?)
Not have wanted to sell before the block (but suddenly do now)
Not hold more than £10k (or not care about overpaying fees or you would use close ended funds with HL)
Be a DIY investor who doesnt take personal responsibility for their investment choices.

Not doing just one of those things means you wouldnt be in this situation/upset...

Thrugelmir

talexuser wrote: »

Today's Questor in the Telegraph, reinforces his hold on HL shares.

Whether this is PR puff or not HL claims Woodford no longer appears in the top 30 enquiries to HLs help desk. So "loyalty" inertia maybe outweighs anger over the consistent Woodford recommend?

If true it's disappointing for the concept of competition - if I was trapped in the gate I would be looking hard at those intermediaries who put Woodford on their sell lists a year ago, and not pay HL any more fees on my total portfolio.

With £90bn or so under management. HL are still an industry force to be reckoned with.

coyrls

Drp8713 wrote: »

But how many people would really be that bady affected?

You would have to do all of the following:

Used the Wealth 50 to build your portfolio
Ignored all of the main investment sectors except UK Equity Income (otherwise you would have sub 10% in WEI and any losses would be 2-3% of portfolio max)
Not have reviewed your holding's performance (if you didnt notice years of underperformance would you notice the removal from the Wealth 50?)
Not have wanted to sell before the block (but suddenly do now)
Not hold more than £10k (or not care about overpaying fees or you would use close ended funds with HL)
Be a DIY investor who doesnt take personal responsibility for their investment choices.

Not doing just one of those things means you wouldnt be in this situation/upset...

According to The Lang Cat:

[FONT=&quot]......although with 76% of HL customers having no exposure to #thatfund, and over 50% of those that do holding less than £4k, I for one am not sure the impact to HL will be that profound.[/FONT]

Drp8713

coyrls wrote: »

According to The Lang Cat:

Quite. Mountain and mole hill.

Given the recent market increase, anybody sensibly diversified will be making a profit even if WEI ends up taking a 20 or 30% hit.

talexuser

Support staff redundancies announced at Woodford Capital. I suppose that was inevitable, carrying on after this looks unlikely unless some uber-contrarians stick with him in a much smaller fund looking for upsides from a shorting over correction.

gadgetmind

But it looks like the highly-paid investment "experts" are still there but they are firing the tea boy and the cleaner.

dividendhero

talexuser wrote: »

Support staff redundancies announced at Woodford Capital. I suppose that was inevitable, carrying on after this looks unlikely unless some uber-contrarians stick with him in a much smaller fund looking for upsides from a shorting over correction.

I guess they won't need any staff to deal with redemptions any time soon..Sales staff never

bowlhead99

gadgetmind wrote: »

But it looks like the highly-paid investment "experts" are still there but they are firing the tea boy and the cleaner.

I expect that the institutional and retail investors would prefer the remaining billions to be managed through the difficult financial circumstances by the investment team who now have to make their own tea, rather than have them depart and instead have the tea lady orchestrate a fire-sale process involving placings of illiquid public and private equity investments.

Yes I do get that the more fashionable response on this thread would be to say, "well I would trust the tea lady to do a better job than these muppets , hur hur". However, that's balls, as most would probably recognise.

Some people (not directed at you, Gadget) seem to be positively rubbing their hands with glee that the fund has imploded and want it to now fail hard so that they can can act outraged while patting themselves on the back that they didn't invest in it. It would be a troubling thread to come across if you had it as a large part of your portfolio.

newatc

bowlhead99 wrote: »

It would be a troubling thread to come across if you had it as a large part of your portfolio.

I guess there will be some who did have it as a large part of their portfolio. A few will go to the press (I think I've read some) but most will now realise they have not been wise and suffer silently.
I think it is interesting that the fund size fell so much in the last year which suggests to me that very many HL customers bailed out despite the encouraging pro-Woodford noises coming from Bristol.
I'm sure HL will in due course succeed in air brushing the experience out of their investment history but in the short term I can't believe that their financial advice and "Wealth 50" part of their business will not suffer.

Malthusian

bowlhead99 wrote: »

It would be a troubling thread to come across if you had it as a large part of your portfolio.

If you had it as a large part of your portfolio it's now a much smaller part of your portfolio, hur hur. (Unless you were invested in it 100%.)

Most regulars on this forum spend a lot of time telling people not to worship at the altar of the star fund manager and usually we are only proven right in marginal, glacially slow fashion. People don't often come back to the forum and say "hey guys thanks for helping me make an extra 2% per year".

When the cult of the star fund manager goes wrong as spectacularly as this, a bit of rubbernecking is inevitable.