Former money man­ager and star stock­picker Neil Wood­ford urged the UK Fin­an­cial Con­duct Author­ity against clos­ing his fund, warn­ing that it would cause “need­less and sig­ni­fic­ant investor det­ri­ment”.

Wood­ford opened his eponym­ous firm Wood­ford Invest­ment Man­age­ment in 2014, before his flag­ship Equity Income fund was sus­pen­ded in June 2019. Its wind­ing-up was announced on Octo­ber 15 that year.

Some 300,000 investors were left in the £3.6bn fund when it was sus­pen­ded, in what became one of the UK’s biggest retail invest­ment scan­dals. The FCA said in 2023 that a redress scheme would enable investors to recover around 77p in the pound.

A let­ter sent to the FCA by Wood­ford Invest­ment Man­age­ment’s law­yers on Octo­ber 14 2019 showed that WIM urged the fin­an­cial reg­u­lator against clos­ing the fund, warn­ing that it would crys­tal­lise big­ger losses for investors than if it were restruc­tured and reopened.