01 December 2020
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Investors trapped in former star manager Neil Woodford's collapsed flagship fund are set to share a payment of nearly £100m in mid-December.
The fund's administrator Link Fund Solutions told investors it had raised a further £98m in the latest sell-off of the portfolio's assets and that investors would be paid their share on or around December 11.
The cash return marks the fourth tranche of payouts from the fund, which was suspended in June last year after it was overwhelmed with withdrawal requests.
[It] won't represent much of a Christmas present given the scale of overall losses on the fund for many investors
It was then shuttered by former star stockpicker Woodford in October, capping off the investment industry's biggest crisis in years.
Link, which has overseen the liquidation of the fund, has agreed a £224m deal to sell 18 healthcare stocks to Acacia Research.
Investors have already been handed £183m as a result of the deal, and the latest tranche will come after the remaining assets have been transferred.
The new payment will bring the total returned to clients since the end of October 2019 to £2.54bn. After this fourth round of payouts, some £186m will still be trapped in the fund.
Earlier this year investors were warned they could face a wait of up to a year to receive the entirety of their cash still sitting in the defunct portfolio.
In a letter, Link doubled down on the forecast and told investors it was expected that some of the remaining assets would not be sold until "mid to late 2021".
Ryan Hughes, head of active portfolios at AJ Bell, said: "News of the next tranche of payment from the winding up of the Woodford fund by Link will be cautiously welcomed by investors with a further £97m likely to be paid on 11 December but won't represent much of a Christmas present given the scale of overall losses on the fund for many investors.
"This payment stems from the previously announced sale of assets to Acacia along with additional sales that have been made in recent months. This fourth payment represents around a third of the remaining value in the fund with Link indicating that a further payment could be made early next year. However, this won't be the end of the matter with further assets still to be sold and indications that this process is unlikely to be completed until mid to late 2021, meaning that it is likely the winding up process will have taken approaching two years."
Last month it emerged that London lawyers are preparing a class action lawsuit against Link, marking what could be the first of many legal claims over the fund's collapse.
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