{"id":6510,"date":"2019-06-12T11:35:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T10:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/?p=6510"},"modified":"2019-06-15T15:55:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T14:55:45","slug":"woodfords-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/woodfords-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"Woodford’s Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A case study on the challenges of active management<\/span><\/h2>\n

For clarity from the outset, no boosst clients have any exposure to Woodford \u00a0funds.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Guest Blog Post:<\/span><\/strong> This blog post has been put together by Tim Hale, you’ll find Tim’s full author bio at the bottom this post.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/span><\/h3>\n

Neil Woodford \u2013 one of the UK\u2019s best known fund managers – has recently had to suspend trading in the Woodford Equity Income Fund.\u00a0 This note takes a look at the causes and lessons of his \u2018dark and terrible moment\u2019 <\/em>as it has been described.\u00a0 Some investors are claiming not to know how the fund was invested, which is surprising given his well-known contrarian approach and his transparent strategy for allocating capital to smaller firms, alongside large cap stocks.\u00a0Woodford, investors, best-buy lists, potential conflicts of interest, the press, and regulators all share some of the blame.<\/p>\n

The key lesson to be learned is that active management adds additional layers of risk including stock concentration, tracking error, liquidity and manager strategy risk to portfolios.\u00a0 In a world where markets work pretty well and manager fees are high relative to likely skill, one should question whether these risks are worth taking.\u00a0 Woodford provides a salutary reminder of the challenges and dangers of doing so.<\/p>\n

The very real (and costly) challenges of active management<\/span><\/h3>\n

It is entirely without any sense of Schadenfreude\u00a0<\/em>that we pen this note on the \u2018dark and terrible moment\u2019\u00a0<\/em>that Neil Woodford and the team at Woodford Investment Management (Woodford) are facing today.\u00a0 The Sunday\u2019s papers made for grim and \u2013 at times unfair – criticism of one of the UK\u2019s most renowned investment managers. Is Woodford a villain or victim in this tragedy?\u00a0 In a sense, a bit of both.\u00a0 We explore the root causes of events culminating in last week\u2019s suspension of the Woodford Equity Income Fund for an initial 28 days, which prevents investors from withdrawing assets from the fund, to allow him time to remodel the portfolio.<\/p>\n

A bit of background<\/span><\/h3>\n

Woodford made his name at Invesco Perpetual, where he managed the successful and extremely popular Invesco Perpetual Income Fund.\u00a0 To get a measure of the man, it is worth remembering that he has always been a high conviction, contrarian investor with a keen focus on UK companies that he deems to have attractive valuations. In his Invesco days the bulk of his portfolio was invested in larger companies, although at times his search for attractive valuations led him to holding almost 30% in smaller companies.<\/p>\n

Over the period since January 2000, the total return of the UK market was 135% and Neil Woodford\u2019s track record delivered 235%.\u00a0 He has made a number of major calls on the portfolio: not to get caught up in the Technology bubble of the late 1990s; to avoid large exposure to the banks prior to the Credit Crisis of 2009; to own tobacco stocks when many were abandoning the sector; and finally to back UK-centric stocks, in a belief that they would weather Brexit better than the market anticipates. Three out of four times his thesis was correct, and no-one yet knows if his fourth call is right or wrong.<\/p>\n

On account of his approach, his portfolio would have looked and behaved very differently from the UK market.<\/p>\n

What is clearly evident is that the difference between his track record and the UK market – known as tracking error – is consistently wide. On an annualised basis this tracking error has been a little over 8% for the whole period and more or less the same before and after setting up Woodford.\u00a0\u00a0 In plain English that means that Woodford delivered annual returns in a range of 8% a year above or below the market two thirds of the time and 16% above or below the market 95% of the time.\u00a0\u00a0 If you take on tracking error, it works both for and against you.<\/p>\n

What went wrong?<\/span><\/h3>\n

When Neil Woodford set up his own namesake fund management business, in addition to launching his equity income fund, he raised money for a closed-ended investment trust to hold unquoted stocks of small early stage businesses, which offer strong valuations.\u00a0 It was made abundantly clear that these were high risk, long-term, illiquid holdings, hence the Patient Capital Trust moniker.\u00a0 The Woodford Equity Income fund, on the other hand, is an open-ended fund structure, which allows for daily subscription and redemptions and, being a UCITs regulated fund, is only allowed a maximum of 10% in unquoted companies.<\/p>\n

There is much academic debate around the degree to which luck plays a role in investment returns, which is largely beyond the scope of this note[2]. However, what we do know is that being a high conviction manager, who owns a portfolio significantly different to the broad market, means that there will inevitably be periods of time when the investment thesis will be right (or lucky) and other times when it will be wrong (or unlucky).<\/p>\n

Poor performance since July 2015 and high-profile issues surrounding a couple of the Woodford Equity Income Fund\u2019s holdings in unquoted companies (Prothena and Circassia) raised investors\u2019 awareness that there might be some concerns.\u00a0 Investors started to sell their holdings.. \u00a0In order to meet those redemptions, the fund needed to sell off its more liquid, larger stocks.\u00a0 As weak performance persisted – from July 2015 to May 2019 the UK market was up around 27% while the fund was down 22%. \u00a0More redemptions quickly ensued.\u00a0 The spiral of selling larger, more liquid stocks to meet these redemptions resulted in a growing concentration in smaller listed companies and unquoted start-up companies.\u00a0 The table below provides an indication of how the fund\u2019s structure changed over time.<\/p>\n

Table 1: Large and smaller company allocations<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/p>\n

Company size<\/td>\n

\n

June 2014\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

(fund launch)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

September 2017<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

March 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Large Cap<\/td>\n73%<\/td>\n30%<\/td>\n5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mid Cap<\/td>\n11%<\/td>\n22%<\/td>\n23%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Small cap<\/td>\n16%<\/td>\n48%<\/td>\n72%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Data source: Taken from FE Analytics, and as quoted in The Times June 8. 2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Woodford\u2019s problems then grew as he hit the maximum 10% allocation to illiquid, unquoted shares allowed in a UCITs fund.\u00a0 Given the need to meet the now withering redemptions \u2013 and being unable or unwilling to offload these unquoted stocks at fire-sale prices \u2013 he sought other means of meeting this restriction, including listing some of the unquoted companies on the Guernsey Stock Exchange, which did little in terms of providing liquidity.\u00a0 He also sold some to his Patient Capital Trust in return for shares in the Trust, which is listed.\u00a0 It remains to be seen what the FCA will make of all this down the line.\u00a0 Eventually, with redemptions continuing (\u00a3187 million in the past month) and with the Kent County Council pension fund looking to redeem its \u00a3263million exposure, he took the sensible decision to protect the existing shareholders interests by suspending the fund. A fund that had once reached over \u00a310 billion in assets now manages around \u00a33.7 billion.\u00a0 St James Place is in the process of replacing Woodford as the manager to its equity income fund, and Hargreaves Lansdowne has (eventually) taken it off its Wealth 50 best-buy list.<\/p>\n

Who is to blame?<\/span><\/h3>\n

We have some sympathy for Neil Woodford, who is a long-term, high conviction investor, and who has been entirely transparent with the holdings in the fund, which are published monthly on the firm\u2019s website. Only the na\u00efve, or the ill-advised, should have been surprised that his fund could deliver returns materially below (as well as above) the market, given his track record and his well-publicised liking for smaller, often unquoted, company stocks.\u00a0 In hindsight, his key mistake was that, for his aggressive active style of management, a closed-ended investment trust might have been a more appropriate structure to manage a portfolio owning illiquid assets.\u00a0 Investors would then have been able to buy and sell shares in the trust in the market to meet any personal liquidity needs. The liquidity mismatch between daily redemptions and illiquid holdings sit at the center of the current debacle.\u00a0To date, Woodford have refused to drop their charges on the locked-in funds, although the FCA\u2019s head, Andrew Bailey, suggested to Radio 4 that it would be \u2018the right thing to do\u2019<\/em>. \u00a0\u00a0Daily fees funded by investors have been estimated at more than \u00a375,000, per day.<\/p>\n

Investors and their advisers should not escape the hook for this either.\u00a0 To only take the good times and run for the door in the bad times strikes us as being evidence that these investors should be allowed nowhere near an actively managed fund of this nature.\u00a0 Many appear not to know how the fund is structured, have little stomach for tracking error and lack patience.<\/p>\n

For Financial Advisers, who did put their clients into the fund \u2013 one presumes in the hope that some of the stardust would rub off on them, in return for the high fees their clients pay \u2013 should be asking themselves if they truly understood their clients, and if their ongoing due diligence and governance was all it should have been.<\/p>\n

Online brokerages, such as Hargreaves Lansdown (HL), also share some of the responsibility.\u00a0 Best-buy lists do not constitute financial advice, but perhaps they should; without any doubt they can materially influence investors, some of whom may not have much experience of investing.\u00a0 Hargreaves were a major distributor of the funds and had negotiated a reduction in the fees from Woodford. Investors (<\u00a3250,000) pay HL 0.45% per annum for administering their assets.\u00a0 Woodford Equity Income remained on the Wealth 50 best-buy list until last week.<\/p>\n

The FCA appears to have stepped in quite late.\u00a0 No doubt they will investigate what has been going on but should reflect on how they monitor funds with illiquid stocks, the use of best-buy lists, possible conflicts of interests between fund management firms and platforms, and general suitability when it comes to recommending highly active funds.\u00a0 Finally, the press and the front-runners and short-sellers, circling like vultures, have added to the stampede and the steep fall in prices. No-one has covered themselves in glory.<\/p>\n

Lessons to be learned<\/span><\/h3>\n

This sorry state of affairs reinforces some very important lessons for investors, which have come at great cost to those invested in the Woodford fund.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Risk and return go hand-in-hand: if you own an actively managed fund that is quite different to the market, its returns will be too, both on the up and the downside.<\/li>\n
  2. Skill is very rare, and luck plays a major role in most active managers\u2019 periods of outperformance. Markets work pretty well, and market-beating performance is likely to come only from taking on higher risks e.g. owning smaller companies.\u00a0After costs, the empirical evidence suggests that very few active managers deliver skill-based returns sufficient to cover their costs over the sort of horizons that investors require.<\/li>\n
  3. In the same way that noise and luck play a big role in fund manager outcomes, so it does when trying to pick active funds. Best-buy lists and advisers active fund picks are highly susceptible to this noise.<\/li>\n
  4. Concentrated stock positions, combined with low levels of liquidity, is a dangerously potent cocktail that represents a material risk to investors\u2019 wealth.<\/li>\n
  5. High levels of diversification in liquid, quoted companies, ensuring that no small set of companies dominates outcomes, is essential. That is why the total number of stocks held in our clients\u2019 portfolio is up in the thousands.<\/li>\n
  6. Gambling on which fund is going to beat the market is an exceptionally low probability strategy. Capturing the market return is a valid and worthy objective.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In conclusion<\/span><\/h3>\n

    The ongoing tale of the Woodford Equity Income fund is a salutary reminder that investing is a tricky game, which can have material costs if you get it wrong.\u00a0 It is hard enough owning the equity market, without the additional risks of active management outlined in this note.<\/p>\n

    We believe that a systematic, well-diversified, low cost approach to investing that avoids active manager, concentration and liquidity risks, is sensible way to go. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Fund charges comparison<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n
    \n

    \n<\/td>\n

    		Annual Management Charge<\/strong><\/td>\nOther additional Fees<\/strong><\/td>\nTotal Fund Cost<\/strong><\/td>\nTotal Fund Cost for a \u00a3250,000 Investment<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Woodford Equity Income A Acc<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n1.00%<\/td>\n0.20%<\/td>\n1.20%<\/td>\n\u00a33,000 per annum<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Average fund used within boosst portfolios<\/strong><\/td>\n0.26%<\/td>\n0.02%<\/td>\n0.28%<\/td>\n\u00a3650 per annum<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    Please note that this table is a direct comparison of Fund costs and takes no account of any advice fees or any charges paid to an investment platform to hold the funds.\u00a0See reference [3]<\/span><\/p>\n

    <\/h3>\n

    Congratulations!<\/span> <\/span><\/h3>\n

    You’ve read this far – you may also find these blog posts of interest…<\/span><\/h3>\n
      \n
    1. How and why we use Diversification in portfolios – LINK<\/a><\/li>\n
    2. Understanding the role of our Investment Committee – LINK<\/a><\/li>\n
    3. Understanding the impact of costs, time and compounding – LINK<\/a><\/li>\n
    4. The impact of Politics on Portfolios – LINK<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Meet the Author
      \n<\/span><\/h3>\n

      \"\"<\/span><\/h3>\n

      Tim Hale is our independent investment consultant and brings significant industry experience, enriching and adding technical content to our Investment Committee meetings.<\/p>\n

      Tim established Albion Strategic Consulting in 2001 following a successful, wide-ranging investment career with Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, and Chase Manhattan in London, New York and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

      Tim is a successful author, his book\u00a0Smarter Investing: Simpler Decision for Better Results\u00a0was first published in 2006 by the Financial Times and is now in its third edition.<\/p>\n

      Albion\u2019s valuable input means that the boosst team can focus on supporting our clients on their own life journey. Albion support our due diligence and review processes, providing independent risk and performance analysis and industry comment. Tim takes part in our Investment Committee meetings and ensures that our disciplined and robust client investment processes are maintained.<\/p>\n

      Tim is passionate about the social utility of good investing. This passion comes from having witnessed, first hand, the many avoidable mistakes and lack of evidence-based decision-making that wastes so much investor wealth. Helping investors to sleep at night, safe in the knowledge that their portfolio is a well-structured as it can be to face the uncertainty of the future, helps us all to sleep well.<\/p>\n

      Tim is an Oxford graduate with an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      References<\/span><\/h3>\n[1] Note that this data set is comprises his \u2018manager\u2019 track record at Invesco Perpetual where he managed more than one fund (as calculated by FE Analytics) and the Woodford Equity Income from inception in June 2014.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n[2] Our view is that it is mainly luck and that the evidence suggests that only a handful of managers are skilled enough to deliver returns that exceed their costs – and they are extraordinarily hard to identify in advance.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      [3] Fees taken from www.woodfordfunds.com<\/span><\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Risk warnings:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>This article is distributed for educational purposes only and must not be considered to be investment advice or an offer of any security for sale. The reference to any products is made only to make educational points and must, in no circumstances, be deemed to be any form of product recommendation.\u00a0Past performance is not indicative of future results and no representation is made that the stated results will be replicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      A case study on the challenges of active management For clarity from the outset, no boosst clients have any exposure to Woodford \u00a0funds. Guest Blog Post: This blog post has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,32],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6510"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6533,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6510\/revisions\/6533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boosst.financial\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}