Woodford ‘reliant’ on Hargreaves Lansdown

NEIL Woodford’s staggering reliance on stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown was revealed last night.

The Bristol-based firm, popular with small investors and boasting one millions clients, generated a third of the assets channelled to the investment manager’s funds, according to website Citywire.

It lays bare for the first time the huge reliance Woodford now has on the stockbroker, after months of poor performance.

Hargreaves clients owned £3.1bn, or 38pc, of Woodford’s Equity Income fund in 2015 and by 2016 this had risen to £3.4bn.

Even when they began to sell in 2017 – as the fund manager endured a torrid year – the assets still only dropped down to £2.2bn, or around 28pc of the fund.

Over those years Woodford, 59, would have generated £50m in fees from Hargreaves clients, it was claimed.

They also ploughed huge amounts of cash into his smaller Woodford Income Focus fund and Woodford Patient Capital.

His popularity with Hargreaves clients is thought to be linked to his continued inclusion on the broker’s Wealth 50 list, which says he is one of the UK’s ‘best-known investors’, incentivised to perform’ and ‘prepared to invest differently from his peers’.

Other brokers such as AJ Bell and Charles Stanley have culled Woodford from their own lists.