Woodford Patient Capital Share Discussion Threads

[spectoacc] 07/10/2019 09:41

They don't say........

No evidence of buyers for the unicorns yet (quelle surprise).

As @topvest points out - the "pot" is actually a load more punts, several of them going awry already.

[jonwig] 07/10/2019 09:33

Telegraph:

Speculation is building that Neil Woodford could be forced to keep his flagship equity income fund closed for another six months as the veteran fund manager battles to offload assets in a bid to allow angry investors a chance at recovering their cash.

Mr Woodford’s fire sale of listed and more illiquid assets has topped more than £1bn but sources said that the total cash pot was unlikely to provide enough headroom for the fund manager to start handing back money to investors by December.

[jonwig] 07/10/2019 08:52

Another Woodfinger Wonder: Sensyne Health (SENS). he took 20% at 175p on float last year. Was down to 12% (around 160p) in August, it's now 100p on increased losses.

[spectoacc] 07/10/2019 08:17

Have misplaced MoneyWeek.

@topvest - agreed, Woody is the UK's worst investor. From hero (twice) to zero (hopefully not literally, but who knows, particularly with WPCT).

Woody knows redemptions will be huge (c.£2.5bn is my guess) yet still chooses to punt. Was pointed out at time of gating that only fair way to do things was to pay people back proportionally as cash came in.

[topvest] 07/10/2019 07:57

Loading up on FTSE-100s knowing you will have to liquidate the positions within a few months is a reckless speculative gamble, and if he put the money in Imperial Tobacco it is a gamble that has already failed. Any prudent man in his position would hold the money in cash or in short term government bonds. Woodford seems to have moved from being a top investor to the worst investor in the UK within a 10 year time frame.

[spectoacc] 07/10/2019 07:26

Great isn't it. Gated in, at whim of Woody's selective dumping, at whim of him punting the cash into the likes of IMB rather than returning it, and all the while taking his full fee. 20% down in 4 months is scandalous, and that's without the unicorns being properly revalued (in some cases, to zero).

MoneyWeek had a good page on WPCT - will copy the highlights later but seemed very much like they'd been reading this thread. "Look at the actions, not the words". "Look at the actual holdings" etc.

[jonwig] 06/10/2019 19:06

Neil Woodford’s stricken Equity Income fund has shrunk 20 per cent in four months as more than a dozen holdings have tumbled in value, inflicting further harm on the hundreds of thousands of investors trapped in the vehicle since its June suspension.
..................
During that time its benchmark, the FTSE All-Share index, has been flat. Peer funds in its Morningstar category lost 0.87 per cent during the period, while other famed British equities managers, Nick Train and Terry Smith, returned 1.7 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively, in their flagship funds.

[spectoacc] 06/10/2019 16:14

Indeed he is, but none of us believe Link when they say it. Not sure what will change my mind - maybe a mass sale of all the giant no-profits, minimal revenues, valued-by-Woodford holdings.

Otherwise, gating ends, all by £500m exits, and that £500m is the unicorns!

[topvest] 06/10/2019 10:47

edit replace "unicorns" with "sucker stocks"!
He is supposed to be reopening at the end of the year.

[spectoacc] 06/10/2019 09:01

@topvest - as envisaged by whom? ;) He's not even offloaded the unicorns yet, tho I get the impression he's almost trying to kitchen-sink WEIF - finally dumping things under bid and after huge falls, recording terrible numbers, then as soon as whatever's left ticks up (not yet of course, not when he's punting it on the likes of IMB) he can claim a turnaround.

People are daft enough to fall for it too, as shown by how many are in WPCT.

[smcni1968] 05/10/2019 22:17

Woody has a great future on Wall Street- sweeping it!

[pugugly] 05/10/2019 20:49

@buywell3 > 10471 - ASF - Upside of course is people will probably eat less, lose weight -
(Some 30% of the world population are obese or over weight

and in by far the majority of cases be healthier as a result.

Medical expenses for treateing weight caused medical conditions such as diabetes - high blood pressure - and possibly cancer will probably reduce significantly.

How to turn a dead pig's ear into a silk purse!!!!!

[topvest] 05/10/2019 20:16

The race is on to see which falls over first - WPCT or the Equity Income Fund. I would go for WPCT actually as I think the Equity Income Fund may well stay gated for longer than originally envisaged.

[porsche1945] 05/10/2019 15:05

Article in the FT says that the best outcome for share holders now is to replace the manager and start a controlled liquidation!

There will be nothing left in the “ Woodford Universe “, his analysts will have to go back to their previous jobs....window cleaning and roadside litter collecting.

[topvest] 04/10/2019 21:07

It looks like this is soon going to breach 40p in a final spiral to single pennies!

[rcturner2] 04/10/2019 14:31

what is striking is the FCA sitting there doing nothing

[chucko1] 04/10/2019 14:15

So, the following news item just went across Bloomberg:

“Shuttered Hedge Fund Arrowgrass Writes Down Fun Fair Bets by 70%”.

This is an example of the downward spiral in asset prices when liquidity dries up for a known seller. This may be in prospect for illiquid parts of the NW portfolios where nothing gets propped up any more.

[cc2014] 04/10/2019 11:38

WPCT NAV down a lump again yesterday at 64.67 which is pretty astonishing with so many unquoted in his portfolio not moving.

On the topic redemptions for WEIF, HL took just a few days to get all their money back on WIFF, they are extremely unhappy about him not waving his fess and their are comments in the press that he wasn't entirely straight with them regarding certain questions they asked. So, it's pretty certain they will give notice and will have informed him already. They got client money invested through "ready made portfolios" and "fund of funds" and "portfolio +).


Woodford (and his Board) will have been told HL are out, plus Kent CC, plus he will have heard it on the IFA/Family Firm roadshows they do quarterly. I'm sure the FCA will have been briefed to.

The challenge for us and thus the conjecture is that we don't really know what's going on, because he no longer publishes the monthly fund updates within a suitable timeframe. August's shows 0.8% cash but we will have to wait until the third week of October for Septembers. Most other funds get this done much much quicker.

My suspicion from the cash percentage at the end of August and the RNS's we see is that he hadn't actively moved into significant cash generation mode until September, or rather the cash he generated in August wasn't that large and some of it went to pay off the bank loan.

I guess we'll find out in about 3 weeks time

[fpladdict] 04/10/2019 11:16

Baffling how this ever has an up day

[chucko1] 04/10/2019 10:30

Well, either he’s in denial about the prospective redemptions (massive, I suspect), or he’s gambling again on “cheap” stocks that might have shown he had “regained his touch” were it to have worked out. Day by day, it shows no sign of ending well.

[jonwig] 04/10/2019 09:57

He'll need to be! I think Link were going to get an indicative estimate of redemptions ahead of December, and I guess HL will have a good idea of their own clients' intentions.

[henchard] 04/10/2019 09:45

Thanks jonwig, I see from the prospectus holding 100% cash is indeed possible.

[jonwig] 04/10/2019 09:36

Henchard, I thought so too, but it's in the fund prospectus, #30.4. (See header.)

[henchard] 04/10/2019 09:32

"He's allowed to go to 100% in principle."

I think Equity OEICs have a 10% limit on cash. I remember at one point when Woodford was at Invesco, he had the regulator on his back for being over 10% cash.

[jonwig] 04/10/2019 09:09

The board change correction yesterday is because they made a right horlicks of the Raymond Abbott announcement, omitting some facts about previous directorships. He's an accountant who made a mess of the Foresight VCT 4 accounts when he was boss of the audit committee there. (From share price )