I have written recently about St James's Place (STJ) and its toxic culture but it is time to think about a company with potentially even bigger problems...and that is Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.)...
As it announced pretty decent full year numbers, shamed Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) did its best to pull the sting from the Woodford scandal by announced that CEO Chris Hill would skip his 2019 annual bonus altogether. But with respect the firm talked utter shite…
Citywire has reported this afternoon that Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) has exited its position in Neil Woodford’s smaller dog fund, the Income Focus fund with regard to its house Multi-Manager funds. This, after dropping the fund from its Wealth 50 last week and telling investors there that if the income was not important to them they should consider their position.
Over the last five articles looking at the Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) multi-manager funds I have found two cases where they were selling Neil Woodford’s flagship fund, the Woodford Equity Income fund, whilst retaining it on the recommended Wealth 50 list, one where the jury is out and two where there is no case to answer. I now move on to the Hargreaves Lansdown Multi-Manager Balanced Managed trust (HL MM BM).
Over the last four articles looking at the Hargreaves Lansdown multi-manager funds I have found two cases where they were selling Neil Woodford’s flagship fund, the Woodford Equity Income fund, whilst retaining it on the recommended Wealth 50 list, one where the jury is out and one where there is no case. I now move on to the (relatively) much smaller Hargreaves Lansdown Multi-Manager Strategic Assets trust (HL MM SA).
Over the past three articles it has become obvious that two out of the three Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) multi-manager funds I have looked at were dumping Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund (WEIF) even though the funds themselves were growing, whilst HL was still promoting WEIF to its private clients. The third I felt was too close to call. In part four I look at the Hargreaves Lansdown Multi-Manager Special Situations Trust (HL MM SS).
In part one of this series I showed that the HL Multi-Manager Income and Growth fund had been dumping Woodford Equity Income fund since the end of January whilst HL was still recommending Woodford via its Wealth 50 list. Part two – the HL MM Equity and Bond fund was inconclusive, although I did show that its % allocation had fallen. In part three I look at the HL Multi-Manager UK Equity fund (HL MM UK Eq).
Yesterday I showed quite clearly that the Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) Multi-Manager Income and growth fund has been dumping Neil Woodford’s sunken flagship Equity Income Fund whilst HL retained Woodford on its Wealth 50 list of recommended funds offered to its private investors. This was in terms of cash value, in terms of the % of the HL fund and in terms of the number of units in Woodford’s fund – yet all the while the HL fund had been increasing in size. Today I move on to the HL Multi-Manager Equity and Bond fund (HL MM E&B).
I said the debacle involving the gating of Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund was going to get messy and it gives me no pleasure at all to write this article because I am myself a client of Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.). But the question has to be asked: has Hargreaves been selling Woodford’s Equity Income Fund whilst at the same time advising clients to buy it.
Hargreaves Lansdown has announced the removal of Neil Woodford's Equity Income Fund from its Wealth 50 top picks- no suprises there: HL may have egg on its face but since the fund is no longer tradeable there was no choice. But HL has also chosen to remove Woodford Income Focus Fund as well. Given what has just happened at EIF it is now a racing cert that Income Focus will also be suspended when there is a tsunami of panicked redemptions, Woodford cannot meet, tomorrow.. If you hold some, you had better hope you can get out tomorrow.
