WPCT Woodford sell 60 per cent of his stake

[Gadgeisbackagain]

Explanation is he needed the loot to pay a tax bill.

Bit surprised by that after all the money he has trousers in recent times. Shocked by his decision not to see it through with his own money. In fact, I think this qualifies him for my award of tosser of the week and it's only Monday and despite strong competition from our politicians.

I would be really upset if I was a shareholder.

I strongly suspect his days managing this IT will come to an end very soon, with the trust management talking already with alternative managers.

Another possibility is a trust wind up but many stocks are massively illiquid so that might prove a bit tricky to pull off despite the huge current discount to NAV.

Gadge

[PinkDalek]

Explanation is he needed the loot to pay a tax bill.

The RNS is here https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exc ... 65860.html

It includes:

The sole reason that he did so was in order to meet personal financial obligations, including a tax liability.

[richfool]

Bit surprised by that after all the money he has trousers in recent times. Shocked by his decision not to see it through with his own money. In fact, I think this qualifies him for my award of tosser of the week and it's only Monday and despite strong competition from our politicians.

Re (my bold), do you mean he hasn't yet lost his trousers, as well as the shirt off his back, or did you mean "trousered" as in pocketed"?!

As mentioned, I believe the sale is to meet a personal tax bill.

[EthicsGradient]

An update on Neil Woodford has come through this morning: the investor could be kicked out as manager of the fund he founded.

The board of the Woodford Patient Capital Trust today said it will assess other options for the fund. While it bears his name, legally it is a separate company from Woodford Investment Management, so the board has the ability to kick him out.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/li ... b6ca539b9d

Not surprised; they need to at least look at it. The sale of the OEIC's illiquid assets to the investment trust may not be in its best interests.

[JimPubes]

Looking at today's news;
Reuters; "WPCT said on Monday that it had received offers from “third parties” to take over managing the trust’s portfolio and that it was considering them." So who are these bodies making offers to manage the trust. Are they out of work fund managers?
Presumably any serious "third parties" must see some actual value to be had from the fund. Or cynically just easy fees since the first action would be to kitchen sink the value so low that it would be easy to then increase the value and claim a bonus.

Matthew Vincent in the FT has a more upbeat article stressing that WEIF and WPCT are different beasts. True but the real question is how much actual value is there in WPCT bearing in mind Woodfords list of catastrophic share picks.
Vincent also points out that WPCT is the most bought trust on the Interactive Investor platform.
Can someone please clarify for me what the logic is here as to why he reckons this is a good sign.
Surely if it is the most bought trust then it must also be the most sold trust.
If it was the most “sought” trust then the share price would be going up, not down.
Jim

[paulnumbers]

Explanation is he needed the loot to pay a tax bill.

Bit surprised by that after all the money he has trousers in recent times. Shocked by his decision not to see it through with his own money. In fact, I think this qualifies him for my award of tosser of the week and it's only Monday and despite strong competition from our politicians.

I would be really upset if I was a shareholder.

I strongly suspect his days managing this IT will come to an end very soon, with the trust management talking already with alternative managers.

Another possibility is a trust wind up but many stocks are massively illiquid so that might prove a bit tricky to pull off despite the huge current discount to NAV.

Gadge

Wow. I had a lot of sympathy for Woodford, he made some errors of judgement and they caught up with him. This is on a whole other level. Pretty indefensible while he traps people in his OEIC and continues to take the fee's there.

[JoyofBrex8889]

Mr Woodford is of course free to dispose of his personal assets as he chooses, just as the BoD are free to sack him as manager.

I think the writing is on the wall here. A change of manager, a write-down of the useless investments and a jettison of the damaged branding under another operation.