WATCH THE WOODFORD VIDEO
for the protesters’ story, at
Neil Taylor in Whitehall last week Neil Woodford has returned to eventing, top, while investors protest, above thesundaytimes/moneythat they made a mistake.
Chris Addenbrooke, the chief
executive of Link Fund Solutions, the
firm responsible for managing the
Woodford funds and shutting them
down, retired in February. He has never
uttered a word of apology and Link is
still used by many fund managers.
Link is also under investigation by the
regulator and faces civil lawsuits.
And then there is the wider fund
management industry. Apart from the
famed investor Terry Smith, none has
spoken out. Another big name, Nick
Train, has at least registered his
frustration, calling for those involved to
either be sued or exonerated.
The Investment Association claims
that lessons have been learnt, but what
lessons? Fund holdings disclosure is still
appalling, manager updates at many
firms are nonsensical, investment
platform best-buy lists still include bad
choices, and liquidity issues (which
blighted Woodford) persist to this day.
Neil Taylor, a retired finance director
from Lincoln who lost £30,000 with
Woodford, has not moved on, so neither
should we.
Not until those involved in this
scandal show that they have learnt
their lessons, and fundamental changes
are made to the way the companies we
trust to hold billions of pounds of our
savings operate.
@jimconeyT
hree years after the closure of the
investment funds run by Neil
Woodford it is acceptable to still be
angry about what happened.
Should we just move on?
Absolutely not.
That is probably what Woodford
would like. He’s been quietly trying to
put back together his old life. He has set
up a new investment firm with long-term
business partner Craig Newman and a
number of his old cronies, but has been
forced to register it in the Cayman
Islands after even the Jersey regulator
seemed to get nervous about accepting
someone who was under investigation
by the City regulator, the Financial
Conduct Authority.
While he was forced to sell his
sprawling £30 million Cotswold estate,
he has kept his towering Bond villain-
style second home overlooking the
Cornish coast.
He’s clearly decided that a period of
contemplation is over and got back in
the saddle at show-jumping events
having not competed since the days
before the scandal began.
On reflection it is astonishing to me
that at the peak of the crisis at his firm,
in mid-May 2019, as hundreds of millions
of pounds flooded out of his funds, with
already rotten performance nose-diving,
Woodford should do the three-hour
round-trip to Haygain Tweseldown, in
Hampshire, with his horse WillowsSpunky so he could come 12th in the
BE100 Open category. What was going
through his mind as he trotted serenely
round the arena doing dressage?
Yet now, while investors are still
protesting on the streets about the
scandal he created, with millions of
pounds of their money still tied up in
rotten assets he bought, and with an FCA
investigation looming, there he is, back
on his horse.
Which brings us to the wider legacy of
this affair.
Of the two men at Hargreaves
Lansdown who I consider most
responsible and utterly blind to the
problems in the Woodford fund — Mark
Dampier and Lee Gardhouse — the
former has retired on a lovely pension
and the latter is still in his job being paid
handsomely. Neither seems to acceptFund bosses want to forget
this scandal. Don’t let them
James Coney
Investors
are still
protesting
on the
streets
The 11-year-old barred from saving
in his Isa by Russian sanctions
Authority, the City regulator,
would not comment on
individual cases but said:
“We expect firms to
implement those sanctions
appropriately.”
Fidelity said restrictions
issued by the EU prevent
those of Russian or
Belarusian nationality, or
residency, from investing into
products held in any EU
member state currencies, or
into EU funds that have
exposure to these securities.
This does not apply to
those nationals residing in
a third country, which
includes the UK.
However, because its
platform allows investment
in funds denominated in EU
currencies, Fidelity seems to
have imposed a blanket ban
on anyone with Russian
nationality wherever they live
and regardless of what they
want to invest in.
A spokesman said: “The
measures mean that we are
unable to collect any further
direct debit payments from
impacted customers, and
have therefore cancelled any
regular savings plans [the
Kellys] have in place. This has
applied to the regular savings
plan established to make
contributions into Mr Kelly’s
son’s Junior ISA.”T
he parents of an 11-year-
old boy who has dual
Russian and British
nationality have been
barred from
automatically adding money
to their son’s savings because
of sanctions against Vladimir
Putin’s regime.
Anton Kelly has had £25
added to his junior Isa by
direct debit, held with
Fidelity International, every
month since he was born.
However, in April, two
months after the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, his
father, Allan, 53, received a
letter from Fidelity saying
that due to EU sanctions
against Russia “you will no
longer be able to trade as you
normally would in
investments denominated in
any official EU member state
currencies”.
The next month, Fidelity
wrote to say that the
company was “unable to
collect any further direct
debit payments from your
bank”. Allan can, however,
add money to the account
over the phone.
Anton’s brother, Gregory,
13, who has a child trust fund
(CTF), a forerunner of the
Junior Isa, does not have thesame problem because his
parents did not register his
dual nationality until after
opening Gregory’s savings
account.
They have not updated the
provider of the CTF of the
change of status since
opening the account. “It’s just
not something you ever think
about after opening a savings
account for your child,” said
Allan, who is a British
national.
Allan, who runs a software
consultancy, lives with his
wife, Taissia, 47, who wasborn in the former Soviet
Union. She arrived in the UK
in 2002 to study an MBA at
Nottingham University,
where she met Allan. She
now has dual Russian and
British nationality
The Kellys, who live in
Acton, west London, have
been vocal against Russia’s
actions in Ukraine and feel
unfairly targeted. They have
marched outside the Russian
embassy in London. “Our son
has lived here all his life but
he is being penalised for
nothing he has done,” Allan
said.
The sanctions regime
affects firms differently
depending on where they are
officially registered.
Hargreaves Lansdown,
Britain’s largest investment
platform, said that an existing
client who is a Russian
national or has dual Russian
and British nationality, who is
not a person “of interest”
under the sanctions, can add
to their investments.
However, they cannot add to
funds domiciled in the EU.
Interactive Investor,
another investment platform,
said that about 250 of its
customers who have Russian
citizenship have been
affected by the sanctions.
The Financial ConductBy Ali HussainIsa holder Anton Kelly, 11MONEY
WE MADE £2.5M IN THREE DAYS
FAME AND FORTUNE
PAGE 16
Woodford back in the saddle as
investors launch new £18m claim
I
t is three years since the day that
changed Neil Taylor’s life. On
June 3, 2019, Taylor, along with
hundreds of thousands of other
investors, was told that his life sav-
ings held in funds run by the famed
stock-picker Neil Woodford were
being frozen.
There had been reports
that Woodford, who at one point
held more than £10 billion of savers’
money, had been struggling to free up
cash after he took huge bets on unlisted
start-up firms and investment perform-
ance plunged. Four months after the
funds were closed, savers were told the
investments would be wound down —
Woodford’s empire was beyond saving.
To date Taylor, a 64-year-old retired
finance director from Lincoln, has
received £40,800 of the £76,000 he
invested in the failed fund. Another
£6,200 remains invested in the most
difficult to sell stocks, but he does not
think he will get much of it back.
“I have not received any income from
this money for three years,” Taylor said.
“It has forced me to change my retire-
ment plans.”
Taylor is still angry; furious that a
promised City regulator investigation
into the scandal has so far deliveredSavers who lost money
are refusing to give up
but the shamed fund
manager is rebuilding his
life. Ali Hussain reports
Two other funds managed by Neil
Woodford, Woodford Patient Capital
investment trust and Woodford Income
Focus, have been handed to other fund
managers, but they have been unable to
turn the tide of bad performance.
The Woodford Patient Capital invest-
ment trust was taken over by the fund
group Schroders in December 2019. It is
now called the Schroder UK Public Pri-
vate trust. It is down 70 per cent over
three years compared with a benchmark
drop of 32 per cent over the same period.
The Woodford Income Focus fund went
to Aberdeen at about the same time, and
is now called the ASI Income Focus fund.
It is down about 17 per cent over three
years compared with a sector average
rise of 15 per cent.
So far as part of its investigation the
FCA has interviewed 14 witnesses, issued
50 information requests and gathered
24,000 pages of evidence. It said: “We
recognise the time taken to investigate
causes frustration among those affected
by a firm or fund failure and who are,
understandably, looking for answers. It is
vital we investigate thoroughly and that
is what we are doing. We continue to
make progress and will provide an
update when we are able.”
Jonathan Lipkin at the Investment
Association, a representative of the funds
industry, said: “The suspension of Wood-
ford Equity Income fund tested the repu-
tation of the investment management
industry like never before, and the out-
come of the FCA’s investigation will be
vital to better understand what has hap-
pened, where responsibility lies and
what needs to change.
“In the meantime, investment manag-
ers have been working to help to restore
the trust of savers... This will all help
ensure savers can have greater confi-
dence in their investments.”
Hargreaves Lansdown, Link Fund
Solutions and the Bank of England
declined to comment.
Neil Taylor is still waiting for justice.
“This whole affair has demonstrated
multiple failures by the regulator and the
companies involved, and we still don’t
have any answers. The longer this goes
on, the less trust and confidence people
will have in the financial industry.”nothing; annoyed that cheerleaders at
firms such as Hargreaves Lansdown have
escaped unscathed; dismayed that Link
Fund Solutions, the firm that was meant
to ensure that not too many risks were
taken with his money failed to do so, and
just plain outraged that Woodford him-
self is putting his old life back together.
Video obtained by The Sunday Times
shows Woodford back in the saddle com-
peting in his favourite sport of show-
jumping for the first time since the scan-
dal broke. Yesterday Woodford’s wife,
Madelaine, was due to compete in a
showjumping event in Somerset with
their horse Willows Spunky. Their reap-
pearance on the showjumping circuit
comes as victims of the Woodford affair
protest outside Parliament and a new
lawsuit against the firms involved is set to
be submitted to the High Court.
Taylor was one of about 30 people who
marched from the Royal Courts of Justice
to the Houses of Parliament in central
London on Tuesday with the campaign
group Transparency Task Force,
demanding an overhaul of regulator the
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in
the wake of the Woodford affair.
His name will appear on a class action
being organised by the law firm Harcus
Parker representing 1,500 people claim-
ing £18 million, which is being submitted
to the High Court on the third anniver-
sary of the fund freeze this Friday.
A similar cases representing thou-
sands of other investors has been lodged
and another one is pending.
The Woodford Equity Income fund
was launched in 2014 and quickly grew
to more than £10 billion, but it started to
falter around 2017. Despite the continued
backing by investment platforms such as
Hargreaves Lansdown, many investors
pulled their money out, forcing the man-
ager to sell stocks quickly, leaving a
greater proportion in smaller, illiquid
companies.
The fund was frozen by Link Fund
Solutions, the firm ultimately in charge,
without any consultation with investors
on June 3, 2019, when it had about
£3.7 billion under management. It is now
being dissolved, and the remaining funds
are being returned to investors in dribs
and drabs. So far, just over £2.4 billion
has been returned and about £140 mil-
lion is still invested.
Immediately after the scandal erupted
Woodford kept a low profile. Despite
being a horse lover, the last time he tookFollow us on Twitter @TimesMoney
part in a British Eventing competition
was on May 19, 2019, days before his fund
was shut.
The video footage shows the 62-year-
old, who along with his business partner
Craig Newman made £13.8 million in divi-
dends in the year leading up to the fund
freeze, taking part in a competition in
Bovington, Dorset, on Willows Spunky
late last year. He was wearing his usual
green and white eventing colours.
He finished tenth out of ten who com-
pleted the BE100 Open category course.
Woodford and his second wife Made-
laine were forced to sell their farm near
Tetbury in the Cotswolds — a £30 million
estate that included an equestrian com-
plex — in December 2020 after the col-
lapse of his business empire. They still
own a home in the seaside town of Sal-
combe, which has undergone a multi-
million-pound renovation recently.
He launched a new firm called Wood-
ford Capital Management Partners
(WCM). The company is ultimately con-
trolled by Paul Green, another of Wood-
ford’s long-term business partners.
Initially WCM was to be based in Jersey,
but a backlash led to it moving to the
Cayman Islands, where a company was
registered in April 2021. Few details have
emerged since.
It was also reported that Woodford
started to rent office space at Marlow
Place, a grand Buckinghamshire mansion
where King George II once lived, but
there is little sign of any progress.
It is reported that Woodford is an
adviser to the American company Acacia,
which bought many of the high-risk
stocks in the failed Equity Income fund,
some argue at a cut-down price. Link
Fund Solutions has denied a fire sale
of assets.
Woodford declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Barry Bird, 76, a retired IT
consultant from Caterham in Surrey, has
lost an estimated £30,000 in the Wood-
ford fund and was on the march on Tues-
day. He lays blame with Andrew Bailey,
the boss of the FCA at the time, who is
now in charge of the Bank of England.
Bird said: “Regulation is completely
ineffective. It does not protect those it
claims to protect. More people will be
ripped off until things fundamentally
change and we get some answers.”
The process of winding down Wood-
ford’s flagship fund may not be com-
pleted until next year, Link warned. The
fund is now just called Equity Income.PAUL SMITH/ULTIMATE IMAGES