St Jame’s Place terminates its £3.5bn relationship with Mr Woodford

In a further devastating blow to Neil Woodford , Wealth Manager St Jame’s Place has terminated its £3.5bn relationship which has wiped out 40 per cent of Mr Woodford’s asset, who was forced to freeze his flagship fund on Monday to stop investor exodus.

St Jame’s Place UK’s biggest wealth manager, with over £100bn under management said is was ending two decades of long associate with Mr Woodford and giving the mandate to Columbia Threadneedle Asset Management and RWC Partners to ensure its client’s investments continue to be managed effectively.”

Mr Woodford was responsible for St Jame’s Place , totalling £3.5bn about 40 per cent of his 8.6 per cent under management.

One of its investment The SJP UK High `~Income fund, has shed 17 per cent in twelve months. Compared to 18 per cent drop in Mr Woodford’s equity income fund, lagging behind 3.3 per cent fall for the FTSE All-Share Index.

The contagion spread to pension fund providers like Old Mutual Wealth, And Phoenix Group which offer products mirroring Mr. Woodford’s flagship. They have now frozen investor withdrawals to those mirror funds.

The fund launched with £500m of capital in 2017, has shrunk to £473m this week and lost 17.8 per cent in the year to May While the benchmark FTSE was down only 3.2 per cent.

Link Asset Services, the body meant to keep the Woodford Equity Income’s behaviour in line failed to perform the role of “Authorised corporate Director” as they were OCD about its role. When Woodford’s liquid assets breached the 10 per cent limit, Link allowed it and even when Woodford did the Guernsey trick, Link turned a blind eye. When Woodford marketed the fund as “equity income” even after selling income stocks to pay for redemptions, Link turned the blinkers on.Link also did not eject Neil Woodford at the helm when it became clear investors may have been better served.

After Connaught and Arch Cru, two of the largest financial scandals, Capita Asset SErvices  got berated for doing too little to protect the investors, Capita sold it to Link of Australia and it changed its name with Chris Addenbrooke remaining in charge.

Financial Conduct Authority should have been awake and kept tabs on Woodford as he tilted his shuttered equity Income towards investments which have proved impossible to sell quickly.

Woodford’s Fund Management has sold or transferred close to £600m of stock since the suspension of its flagship £3.7m fund on Monday, as the stockpicker scrambled to raise cash.