Yesterday evening I attended a webinar hosted by ShareSoc on a proposed legal action over the substantial losses suffered by investors in the Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF). It was chaired by Mark Northway and Cliff Weight with other speakers being Boz Michaelowska from legal firm Leigh Day and David Ricketts. The latter is a financial journalist who has written a book entitled “When the Fund Stops” which covers the past events at the Woodford funds and which will be published in the New Year. It is already available to pre-order.
Leigh Day have identified a case against Link Fund Solutions, the Authorised Corporate Director (ACD) for the fund and which is part of a large financial group (Link). Leigh Day’s investigations lead it to believe that Link allowed WEIF to hold excessive levels of illiquid or difficult-to-sell investments, and that this caused investors significant loss. In doing so, they consider Link breached the rules of the FCA Handbook and failed to properly carry out the management function of the Woodford Equity Income Fund.
This writer never personally held any of the Woodford funds, but having been involved in two previous large legal actions (over Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland), it was interesting to hear about this one. ShareSoc is endorsing and supporting the Leigh Day case and is providing a discussion forum for investors – see https://www.sharesoc.org/campaigns/woodford-campaign/ . They are taking up other issues not covered by the legal claim such as the failure of regulation to prevent the collapse of WEIF.
Some 600,000 investors were affected by the closure and wind-up of WEIF and have lost very substantial sums of money – over 25% of what they invested based on some calculations over a few years, in a period when the stock market was otherwise booming. As much as £1 billion in losses were suffered. The decline and eventual closure of WEIF was driven by investment in small cap, often unlisted, companies which proved very difficult to sell and could be considered unwise investments to begin with.
Leigh Day seem to be putting together a sound legal structure required for such an action – a Group Litigation Order, with after the event insurance to protect claimants with a “no win, no fee” financial structure and support from litigation funders. The latter and the associated costs mean that claimants, even if the case is won, will only receive about 70% of the proceeds, even assuming Link can pay which is not clear.
However, investors in WEIF have little to lose from supporting this legal claim although Leigh Day have not yet disclosed the details of their claim.
Note that they are not at present pursuing Neil Woodford, nor his fund management company, nor Hargreaves Lansdown who actively promoted the Woodford funds. Nor are they pursuing a case over investment in the Woodford Patient Capital Trust now taken over by Schroder (NAV down 73% in the last 5 years).
But there are several other legal firms mounting cases over the Woodford funds who might be covering other claims. As I experienced in the past legal cases in which I was involved, lawyers are keen to get involved as they see potential fees of several millions of pounds in the pipeline from pursuing such cases.
Note that investors might also consider a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman which might be an alternative route to redress.
Comment: The ShareSoc seminar provided a very clear exposition of the legal case and past events. It is good to see that ShareSoc is not backing off from involvement in legal claims where they have examined the case carefully and have some assurance that it is being well managed.
My view is that investors in WEIF should support the Leigh Day claim and should register their interest, but they need to be aware that such legal actions are always uncertain and can take many years to come to a conclusion. But if the case focusses on the role of Authorised Corporate Directors (ACDs) that might ensure that they take more care in future to monitor the activities of individual fund managers.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
