But now, since Neil Woodford stopped investors from withdrawing their own money from his flagship fund, he is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. His Woodford Equity Income Fund holds the pension savings and investments of tens of thousands of people. Photograph: Woodford Investment Management/PAIn December 2017 he said in an interview that they key to successful investing was to “have a sufficiently strong arrogant gene to back your judgment, back your conviction”. Hargreaves’s customers had £2bn invested with Woodford at the end of March – roughly a fifth of all the money in his three big funds. In the 2017-18 financial year alone, which was a dreadful period for his funds, Woodford Investment Management paid a £36.5m dividend to a company called Woodford Capital.

Source: The Guardian June 08, 2019 15:00 UTC