The UK star fund manager Neil Woodford's equity fund has been shut down
- The fall from grace for Neil Woodford, once the UK's best-known stock pickers, reached a climax on Tuesday after the fund was shuttered.
- Woodford's fund, which once managed $10 billion worth of assets, slammed shut in June, leaving investors unable to pull their capital from the fund, after a series of bad stock picks by the firm left it with just under $4 billion under management.
- Woodford will cease control, and the call has been made to "wind it up as soon as practicable," the statement said. "This is with a view to returning cash to investors at the earliest opportunity."
- View Markets Insider's homepage for more stories.
The fall from grace for Neil Woodford, once known as the UK's best-known stock picker, has climaxed on Tuesday with an announcement that he will cease control of the fund and it will be wound down.
Link Fund Solutions (LFS), the fund's authorized corporate director, announced the decision on Tuesday morning via its website, that it would be wind up the fund as soon as possible.
"After careful consideration, the decision has now been taken not to re-open the Fund and instead to wind it up as soon as practicable," the statement said. "This is with a view to returning cash to investors at the earliest opportunity."
Earlier this year, in June, Neil Woodford slammed his equity fund shut after a series of bad stock picks over 22 months led to billions flowing out of the fund.
Woodford Equity Income Fund once managed roughly £10 billion in assets ($12.6 billion), as Woodford became a household name in UK finance circles, by investing on big public stocks.
But after the fund made the decision to move into thinly traded, non-public, and unlisted companies, the fund shrank to just under £4 billion ($5.1 billion).
Investors that had put their capital into the equity fund were left stranded, as Woodford stopped cash flowing further out of the fund - the UK's Financial Conduct Authority came under heavy criticism for the way in which it handled the debacle.
In the letter, LFS said that the fund had made progress in repositioning itself with more liquid investments and wanted to reopen by December, however, LFS said that "this has unfortunately not been sufficient to allow reasonable certainty as to when the repositioning would be fully achieved and the Fund could be re-opened.
"We have therefore concluded that it is now in the best interests of all investors for the Fund to be wound up by way of an orderly realisation of the Fund's assets."
BlackRock will take over winding down the fund, and PJT will advise, the statement said.