Woodford Investment Management has announced that it is to switch the Woodford Equity Income Fund’s unquoted exposure from individual unquoted holdings to shares in the Woodford Patient Capital Trust -
https://woodfordfunds.com/words/blog/transfer-of-unquoted-assets/
Ryan Hughes, head of active portfolios at AJ Bell, comments:
“The move from Woodford to begin the process of reducing direct exposure to unlisted stocks is a sensible move and tackles one of the problems that the Equity Income fund has had over the past two years. It is always a challenge to own illiquid stocks in a daily traded fund and with the selling pressure that the Equity Income fund has seen with the fund halving from over £10bn to less than £5bn, it must have created difficulties for Woodford. The move to instead gain exposure through the Patient Capital Trust is an effective way to mitigate this with the illiquid nature of the assets well suited to a closed ended investment trust structure.”