Wood­ford's em­bat­tled in­vestors en­dure an­oth­er blow as £550M deal to sell-off biotech hold­ings fal­ters

Neil Wood­ford’s flag­ship fund is in the process of liq­ui­da­tion — and of­fload­ing the now shunned vet­er­an stock pick­er’s non-liq­uid hold­ings is prov­ing a bru­tal task.

In­vestors in the fund have re­port­ed­ly suf­fered yet an­oth­er set­back af­ter a £550 mil­lion deal to res­cue a port­fo­lio of his non-liq­uid stakes in biotech star­tups col­lapsed, which could cul­mi­nate in a fire sale of the hold­ings.

The im­plo­sion of Wood­ford’s fund and his rep­u­ta­tion as one of the UK’s shrewdest stock pick­ers oc­curred last year, fol­low­ing a pro­tract­ed pe­ri­od of with­drawals and a sub­se­quent sus­pen­sion that left swathes of in­vestor cash trapped.

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