Woodford Equity Income savers told they won’t get their cash back for ANOTHER year
Investors stuck in Neil Woodford’s doomed Equity Income Fund could be waiting at least another year to get their money back.
Savers who are locked in the fund were told in a letter that some of its assets may not be sold until mid to late 2021.
And while investors have lost at least £1billion since the fund was suspended last June, the big-name firms winding up the fund have raked in £15.5million of fees.
Saddled with losses: Equestrian fan Neil Woodford was a star fund manager before his empire collapsed last year
The Woodford Equity Income Fund was suspended in June 2019, and in October last year the decision was made to wind the fund up.
Link Fund Solutions, the firm which had been overseeing the running of the fund, fired Woodford and appointed new managers to sell the assets and return the cash to savers.
Weary investors have been receiving their money back in dribs and drabs, but have watched on helplessly as the value of their remaining investment has dwindled.
There are still stakes in 17 different companies left in the fund to be sold, but Link estimates they are worth just £288million.
Their value could fall even further if no buyer is willing to pay that price.
Ryan Hughes, head of active portfolios at AJ Bell, said the amounts paid to the new managers winding up the fund ‘will surely stick in the throat of all investors who have been waiting patiently to get some of their money back’.
Link’s managing director, Karl Midl, wrote to investors: ‘We would like to reassure you that we have taken all possible steps to protect investors’ interests in returning cash to you at the earliest opportunity.’