Funds

Neil Woodford’s former stock picking team disbanded as demand for British shares slumps


An investment team formerly run by Neil Woodford is being disbanded amid flagging interest in London-listed shares.

Invesco is to close its dedicated UK stock-picking unit and merge it with its European division from January.

The teams are being merged as investor interest in British stocks wanes.

Money in the Invesco UK Equity Income and High Income funds has shrunk to £6.86bn, compared to £33bn when Mr Woodfood oversaw them.

Mr Woodford made his name as a star stock picker at Perpetual, which was acquired by Invesvo, in the early 2000s. He favoured unfashionable stocks such as tobacco that paid a steady dividend.

Mr Woodford left Invesco in 2013 and raised £1.6bn for the launch of his own fund.

However, Woodford Investment Management, which adopted a riskier strategy, collapsed after it was unable to sell assets quickly enough to meet a surge in withdrawal requests from investors.

Mr Woodford has since been heavily criticised for his role in the scandal.

Invesco’s current UK team is understood to include seven fund managers, led by Martin Walker, who will jointly run the new department based at Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.

John Surplice, co-head of European equities at Invesco, said: “The two teams have always worked closely and share many investment resources to leverage their combined intellectual property at both the fund management and analyst level.

“We are simply formalising this collaborative approach further.”

Invesco’s decision to close its standalone UK-focussed unit reflects wider antipathy among investors towards UK shares after Brexit. Active funds, such as those run by Invesco, have also been hit by the increasing popularity of low-cost index trackers.

Last year, chip giant Arm snubbed London by floating in New York, reinforcing the dearth of big name technology businesses on the FTSE 100. Other London-listed companies, such as CRH and Paddy Power owner Flutter Entertainment, have moved to the New York Stock Exchange.



Source link

Leave a Response