Woodford’s fund invests

iNVEsTOrs in Neil Woodford’s doomed flagship fund have unwittingly given another £360,000 to secretive business Mafic.

savers in the shuttered Woodford Equity income fund were told in a letter this week that Link – the firm winding up the fund – had ploughed more of their cash into Mafic.

Link is supposed to be closing the fund, selling the assets and returning cash to investors. Around £124m of their money is still stuck inside, after the fund was suspended in 2019 following poor performance.

Link has already returned £2.54bn to Woodford investors, but they have lost around £1bn since the fund was suspended, as the value of the assets has tumbled.

Accounts for Mafic, which produces a material called basalt fibre, are three years out of date but show it lost £50.7m in 2018.

This summer, Link invested £710,000 of savers’ money in Mafic, hinting that it could have gone bust without the cash and caused even greater losses to investors.

in this week’s letter, Link said its actions were ‘in investors’ best interests’. Link added it was ‘unable to provide a specific date’ for when investors could expect the rest of their money back.