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Even a few of our detractors have now come around
For all the chatter from certain City folks with degrees in Chemistry, and others, about how a new name and a new management team would transform the fortunes of the Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), the belated release of the December 31 2019 factsheet shows what a diabolical mess the vehicle now known as the Schroders UK Public Private Trust (SUPP) is in. Is it beyond redemption? Have the City establishment stopped pretending yet?
I see that Roger Lawson of ShareSoc is today praising the FT's coverage of Neil Woodford. How sad and predictable that the establishment engages in mutual masturbation rathing than seeking the truth. The FT is the paper that publisshed a blow job interview with Woodford as recently as April 2019. Of course Roger is not mentioning our work in his little read blog posts or praising the folks who called this one out with more than 1000 articles and podcasts since 2015. But I hope that the BBC does recognise who was Woodford's nemesis on Monday. In case it has forgotten here are our 50 most read articles on the ex fund manager
Neil Woodford has been fired from his flagship Equity Income Fund today, vindicating our more than 1000 articles and podcasts exposing him since 2015, but his problems do not end there. I recently commissioned a resting fund manager to produce a detailed bottom up analysis of Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust (WPCT). That report from a man known as “The Badger” landed with me last night and is shocking in its conclusion: the Trust is essentially worthless. The Badger writes:
I discuss one of them in full. One have referred to before, part 2 is tomorrow bt I can't say what it is for another few weeks. Then I look at today's Neil Woodford shocker Benevolent AI and how much Neil personally has trousered from valuations now shown to be a joke. Then the attack on Saudi Arabia and what it means for oil prices, gold and the global economy. It is not as dramatic as if this had happened in the 1970s. But there is a dramatic scenario to consider.
Cynical Bear warned Benevolent AI would be Neil Woodford's Kryptonite in May 2018. His coverage before then and his and our coverage since then was amazing and so far ahead of that of the Deadwood Press. The Sunday Times does some "analysis" today and almost gets the same answer we got years ago. Wankers. But it has a new angle: the next funding round will be a savage "down round". I explain why this will blow Woodford apart exposing to all what a greedy charlatan and chancer he is.
I covered the May portfolio update from Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) earlier today. Now I turn to his gated Equity Income Fund (WEIF). As a starting point, I note that its borrowings were up to 2.64%. With the fund valued at £3.7 billion it means the gating started with the massive headwind of a bank overdraft of £97.7 million which we have subsequently learned that the bank has demanded settlement of. Not a good start for a fund which was gated the next trading day facing, we learn, almost £300 million of redemptions. So Neil has to find £400 million just to pay that lot off.
The May month-end numbers from Neil Woodford’s funds are out and the numbers at Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) are really horrible. Just as horrible is that since the end of May the NAV per share has dropped sharply from 89.61p to the current figure of 83.79p – a drop of 6.5% in just three weeks. Bearing in mind that most of WPCT is unlisted, that’s some going.
The £2 billion valuation of Benevolent AI flatters the NAV of Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), whose AGM I shall be attending this morning, and has - on its own - earned Neil Woodford c£2 million pa in management fees as a result of the EIF Holding. We have covered this Theranos in waiting many times HERE. But what is the scientific view?
As investors settle down for the Good Friday and Easter bank holiday weekend, Neil Woodford has had a fair degree of coverage to assimilate. Articles in The Times and the FT point to Woodford’s sale of £42 million worth of NewRiver REIT (NRR) to his former junior at Invesco – something which ShareProphets readers have been aware of ten days now (it is good to see the dead wood press keeping up!) Meanwhile Citywire reports that the suspensions of Woodford’s stocks in Guernsey may be resolved this coming week although we are not told which way. And Hargreaves Lansdown appears to be standing by its man, still, as it covers the recent results from WPCT – something covered here some two weeks ago.
The big news for Neil Woodford this week is that his joke listings in Guernsey have been suspended, casting a big shadow over his tactics of playing with the rules over the unlisted stocks within his portfolio. The questions ahead are whether they will now be booted off the Guernsey International Stock Exchange, and what the FCA will demand of him in response.
Neil Woodford has today spunked £7.5 million more of his investors cash in a £7.7 million placing by joke company Verseon (VERS). It is a cynical and seedy waste of other folks cash which shows the moral rot that has set in at the heart of the crumbling empire of Britain’s most disliked, failing, fund manager.
I see that Neil Woodford has had an interview published in the FT in which he lambasts critics determined to destroy his reputation, misinformation, lazy commentary, fake news, fake analysis which “pisses me off” and vents his frustration at the poor investment decisions of investors selling up.
I couldn’t resist coming out of retirement today as I note that Benevolent AI published its group accounts today and my thoughts in the first two parts of this series back in May last year (HERE and HERE) have proven to be pretty much on the mark. This company, and in particular the $2 billion valuation, is an absolute spoof and Woodford is totally complicit in that - and making a fortune as a result. A good old-fashioned birching is too good for him.
I smiled at yesterday’s announcement from Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) summarising the “summer of milestones” achieved across the portfolio as I imagine that is just buttering up the audience before the bevy of bad news hits. From my point of view, September is going to be a hellish month for Mr Woodford so welcome to ‘I-Spy Woodford’s September Hell’
Having looked at Woodford’s Equity Income Fund earlier, I will now turn to Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) which as ever, even though the goalposts keep moving, is up against its limits and with the portfolio remaining awash with cash guzzlers, I’m struggling to understand how Neil Woodford gets out of the mess.
With the end-June portfolio listings coming out yesterday, I thought I would update with a couple of pieces looking at each of the two major funds. First up, I’ll look at the flagship fund, the Equity Income Fund, where continuing redemptions necessitate exiting one of the better stocks completely leaving a greater proportion of dross behind.
Yesterday afternoon, Neil Woodford released his end-May portfolio updates and associated fund factsheets which highlighted the challenges facing Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) in the coming months as its debt position is now almost untenable, not that Woodford has disclosed as such.
The first part of this mini-series highlighted oddities relating to the recent $2 billion valuation of Benevolent AI, Woodford’s largest unquoted holding. To complement that piece, I thought I would undertake a bottom-up analysis to understand whether it could be worth such a sum. All I found was more spoofery. It’s a bit of a long read but surely you’ve got nothing better to do on Bank Holiday Monday!
In my view, Woodford’s dealings with what is now his largest unquoted holding across his funds, Benevolent AI, is his kryptonite and will be his undoing and I’m doing a couple of articles outlining why I think the current $2 billion valuation is an absolute spoof and why I believe Neil Woodford is complicit in said spoofery.
Yesterday afternoon, Neil Woodford released his end-April portfolio updates so thought I’d provide a bit of commentary prior to a couple of headache inducing articles (for Neil) later on in the week. Not a huge amount of change; however, it’s good to see an open-ended fund getting stuck into the use of debt in such a cavalier way!
Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) recently came out with its disappointing 2017 results and thought I’d highlight a few amusing aspects to try to cheer up shareholders here and ask a few serious questions of the Chairman, Susan Searle.
There’s been a lot to comment on relating to Woodford Capital Patient Trust (WPCT) recently but with the March portfolio updates for all of Woodford’s funds finally being published on Monday, I thought I should get my updates out as Woodford appears to have been a bit preoccupied to do so with a minor biotech blip and the like.
I’ve been wondering for a while how Neil Woodford was going to deal with the impending crisis at his flagship Equity Income Fund in relation to the hard, unquoted stock limit of 10% and with all his Get Out of Jail cards used up. Filings at Companies House seem to indicate that he was left with one last option – giving his shares back to the company at nominal value!
Almost three years after launch, Woodford has achieved what would have seemed impossible at the launch of Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) back in April 2015 in that he has managed to compile a portfolio of 85 holdings without one obviously profitable company among them. Having sold the star of the portfolio in the month namely A J Bell, to keep the lights on and fund a few other future dogs, he’s now left with a whole array of cash-guzzling, largely illiquid dogs – what’s not to like.
I don’t apologise for banging this drum a bit more in the context of Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) as the transactions relating to Benevolent AI just look so wrong and WPCT shareholders should be fuming and raising hell. I also have a few more facts to share and two additional interesting pieces of information – one new, one old.
I’ve been smiling this week at the comments on Woodford’s website as the moderators are desperately sticking to the party line regardless of what is happening in reality or what Woodford himself is briefing to investors privately. Let me explain in the context of his Income Focus Fund.
I alluded to the swapping of the Benevolent AI stock between the two Woodford funds in my early chapters of The Big Short looking at Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) but there are so many odd aspects to the saga going back a few years that it merits an Appendix to itself as it raises a number of serious additional questions for the Board in my view.
