Having looked at Woodford’s Equity Income Fund earlier, I will now turn to Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) which as ever, even though the goalposts keep moving, is up against its limits and with the portfolio remaining awash with cash guzzlers, I’m struggling to understand how Neil Woodford gets out of the mess.
With the end-June portfolio listings coming out yesterday, I thought I would update with a couple of pieces looking at each of the two major funds. First up, I’ll look at the flagship fund, the Equity Income Fund, where continuing redemptions necessitate exiting one of the better stocks completely leaving a greater proportion of dross behind.
I’ve touched on Immunocore a few times in passing as it one of the largest holdings in Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) as well as being the largest investment made by Dublin-listed Malin Corporation, of which Woodford is the largest shareholder, obvs! Well, it looks like it’s not a particularly happy ship and I wonder whether a (further) devaluation is required?
It’s undoubtedly been a good week for Neil Woodford, with the Autolus IPO getting off to a flying start and I also sense the Stobart tussle is moving in his direction too. Nevertheless, as I’m still in a grump about his shoddy debt non-disclosure last week, I thought I’d have a look through the Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) portfolio to see what else I could find as he’s always banging on about unicorns hiding in there somewhere.
Yesterday afternoon, Neil Woodford released his end-May portfolio updates and associated fund factsheets which highlighted the challenges facing Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) in the coming months as its debt position is now almost untenable, not that Woodford has disclosed as such.
As I’m always quick to criticise, I thought it only right to congratulate Mr Woodford when the rare pieces of good news turn up and Autolus’s news yesterday is undoubtedly good news although I’m still going to make a couple of observations re Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT).
I’ve always thought it odd when investment vehicles merely take stakes in other investment funds as one ends up with duplication of fees. There is usually an investment policy limit on such stakes, not that Mr Woodford appears to be taking the limit at Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) that seriously. Why would he - rules are for the great unwashed aren’t they?
I’ve been meaning to write about the outrageous risk profile assigned to Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) for a while as it is patent nonsense and dangerous. I wonder whether there could be a mis-selling claim waiting to happen here.
The first part of this mini-series highlighted oddities relating to the recent $2 billion valuation of Benevolent AI, Woodford’s largest unquoted holding. To complement that piece, I thought I would undertake a bottom-up analysis to understand whether it could be worth such a sum. All I found was more spoofery. It’s a bit of a long read but surely you’ve got nothing better to do on Bank Holiday Monday!
In my view, Woodford’s dealings with what is now his largest unquoted holding across his funds, Benevolent AI, is his kryptonite and will be his undoing and I’m doing a couple of articles outlining why I think the current $2 billion valuation is an absolute spoof and why I believe Neil Woodford is complicit in said spoofery.
Yesterday afternoon, Neil Woodford released his end-April portfolio updates so thought I’d provide a bit of commentary prior to a couple of headache inducing articles (for Neil) later on in the week. Not a huge amount of change; however, it’s good to see an open-ended fund getting stuck into the use of debt in such a cavalier way!
Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) recently came out with its disappointing 2017 results and thought I’d highlight a few amusing aspects to try to cheer up shareholders here and ask a few serious questions of the Chairman, Susan Searle.
There’s been a lot to comment on relating to Woodford Capital Patient Trust (WPCT) recently but with the March portfolio updates for all of Woodford’s funds finally being published on Monday, I thought I should get my updates out as Woodford appears to have been a bit preoccupied to do so with a minor biotech blip and the like.
Following on from my piece on Sunday in which I suspected that Woodford had covertly changed the Investment Policy for Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), it was confirmed this morning in its full year results. This is an absolute disgrace and shareholders should get on to their lawyers.
Just as the tide seemed to be turning in favour of a couple of Woodford’s holdings, he suffered an absolute body blow this afternoon with his largest quoted holding, Prothena (NSDQ: PRTA), which comprised 9.12% of WPCT as at end-March, as it announced that it was discontinuing the development of its main drug and the share price collapsed as a result.
Following on from Tom’s excellent presentation at the UK Investor Show yesterday I thought it only right to continue in my questioning of the “star fund manager” especially as it looks to me as if the Investment Policy for Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) has been subtly changed (to the detriment of shareholders of course) but Woodford doesn’t seem to have told anyone!
I’ve been wondering for a while how Neil Woodford was going to deal with the impending crisis at his flagship Equity Income Fund in relation to the hard, unquoted stock limit of 10% and with all his Get Out of Jail cards used up. Filings at Companies House seem to indicate that he was left with one last option – giving his shares back to the company at nominal value!
Thanks for the few entries to the Woodford Easter Quiz. Although a couple of people got the odd one out and for the right reason, as I expected, only one person got it right and named all sixteen companies correctly so well done KayeSeraSera (again). A chocolate gift will be winging its way to you, probably in time for Christmas! Full results below.
It being a major religious festival, I thought it appropriate to serve up another Woodford-related quiz. Simple on the face of it, just tell me which of the sixteen graphs below is the odd one out and why - a full answer is required other than the obvious. A chocolate gift to anyone who can go one better than that and name all sixteen companies. To assist on one of them, the graph is pre-share consolidation earlier this year.
Further to my update piece last week, I’ve managed to take a closer look at the end-February portfolio of Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) and I just can’t make the numbers work. I can only assume that Woodford has breached his investment policy; let me explain.
