Investors in former City darling’s fund launch lawsuit

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6th June 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning Welcome back from the long weekend. To put any mistakes you may make this week in perspective, here’s a story about a Citigroup trader that caused a ‘flash crash’ in the Swedish stock market when he accidently added an extra zero to a trade. The ‘fat finger’ error wiped as much as £240bn off the value of the market.

Today's stories

Investors in former City darling’s fund launch lawsuit
Camden Market goes up for sale with £1.5bn price tag

INVESTMENTS
Investors in former City darling’s fund launch lawsuit

What happened?
Investors who lost money in a fund run by of one of UK’s most famous stockpickers are suing the fund's administrators Link Fund Solutions. On Friday a claim representing 1,500 investors in Neil Woodford’s Woodford Equity Income Fund - which collapsed three years ago – was brought to the high court with the hope of recouping at least £18m.

Who is Neil Woodford?
He was one of the most high profile City fund managers in the past three decades. He made his name at asset manager Invesco Perpetual where anyone who invested £10,000 with him at the start of his 25 year career there would have seen it grow to £250,000 by the time he left in 2013.

His fall from grace was one for the books
After leaving Invesco he started his own fund where his formidable track record meant he raised £1.7bn from investors in just two weeks. He was trusted by everyone from big name pension funds to ordinary people to invest their money. The fund was worth more than £10bn at its peak.

But things turned sour when the fund started to underperform leading investors to withdraw more than £500m in just one month. By June 2019 the fund had been frozen by the administrator and later collapsed.

The lawsuit isn’t against Woodford himself but the fund administrator
Investors say Link should have done more to protect their money by making sure investments weren’t overly risky.

A spokesperson for Link said it planned on “vigorously defending” itself and that “it has acted at all times in accordance with applicable rules, as well as in the best interests of all investors, and it will continue to do so”.

About 300,000 investors were affected by the fund’s collapse and thousands more are expected to launch similar lawsuits against Link. The overall claim could reach £100m.

Next steps: The first court hearing is expected in September, though a trial may not take place until at least 2024.

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RETAIL
Camden Market goes up for sale with £1.5bn price tag

What happened?
Camden Market, one of London’s most popular markets, has been put up for sale by for £1.5bn, according to reports from the FT.

Some no-background: Spread across 16 acres in north-west London, Camden Market has been operating since the 1970s and today has over 1,000 shops, stalls, bars and cafes. It’s one of the capital’s top tourist destination, attracting 28m visitors a year. It includes Stables Market, Camden Lock and Buck Street Market, as well as housing and co-working spaces.

It generates £72m in annual rent for its current owner Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi. He’s the founder of gambling software company Playtech and reportedly first became interested in the market because he had an office close by. Sagi started by buying the Stables Market site in 2014 for £400m, before adding Camden Lock market for around £70m to £90m.

It’s not the first time Sagi has tried to sell the market. The site was originally put up for sale in 2019 and reportedly received a £1bn offer but the process was later paused as the pandemic hit.

Stat of the day

According to a new Deloitte survey 47% of millennials globally that live pay cheque-to-pay cheque

Interesting links from around the web

These are the best cities for work-life balance
How to protect your skin from the unforgiving summer sun
Why it could pay to buy your holiday money now

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Investors in former City darling’s fund launch lawsuit

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