Watchdog “disappointed” by disgraced fund manager’s announcement

Friday 19 February 2021

Jersey’s financial regulator has blasted disgraced UK fund manager Neil Woodford for announcing plans to set up a new firm on the island in a national newspaper without first submitting the necessary paperwork.

Mr Woodford’s previous Guernsey-linked £3bn venture fell apart in October 2019 amid mounting investor withdrawals.

Around 300,000 investors were reported to have suffered significant losses as a result, and around £200m of their cash is still to be returned to them.

Although the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) opened an investigation, it is still yet to release its findings and Mr Woodford remains on its register.

Still able to work in investments as a result, Mr Woodford revealed plans to start a new enterprise bearing his name in Jersey and Buckinghamshire last week in a "tearful and defiant" interview with the Sunday Telegraph.

Pictured: Hundreds of thousands of investors lost money when Mr Woodford's previous venture fell apart.

The JFSC has this afternoon expressed frustrations with the surprise reveal, saying it was “disappointed to see this announcement in advance of either receiving or processing any application from this company for authorisation to conduct licensed business as an investment management firm in Jersey.”

“It would be normal practice when making such an announcement to make it clear that it is ‘subject to regulatory approval’,” a statement read.

As a matter of “public interest”, the regulator confirmed that the trading name ‘WCM Partners’ has been reserved in Jersey, but reiterated that “no application has been received or processed to authorise WCM Partners to operate as a Jersey company or an authorised investment management firm in the island.”

It comes just hours after the Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA - which has been criticised by campaigners for the delay in completing its probe into the Woodford fund disaster - assured that it would “share information” with the JFSC on any application for a new firm made in either jurisdiction, according to Reuters.

Unlike his previous collapsed venture, Mr Woodford pledged that biotech-focused ‘Woodford Capital Management Partners’ would only raise money from professionals.

Justifying his return to the financial scene in the Sunday Telegraph, he explained: “I didn’t want what happened to me in 2019 to be the epitaph of my career, I didn’t want it to be the full stop. 

“I’m not trying to rebuild an ego, I just felt I wanted to continue to do the things that I believe in. I don’t think I’m qualified to do anything else. You can imagine lots of people who have read the media about me wouldn’t want to touch me with a 10ft disinfected bargepole.”

For finance sector reform campaigners Gina and Alan Miller, Mr Woodford’s intended return raises “alarming regulatory and public policy implications”.

On behalf of the True and Fair Campaign, the pair has now written to the UK’s Treasury Select Committee to call for an independent review into what went wrong.  

We look forward to the full response to our Open Letter to the @CommonsTreasury re #Woodford next week@True_and_FairUK #consumerprotection#regulation https://t.co/vHJhEmZT5N

— Gina Miller (@thatginamiller) February 18, 2021

They described the apparent lack of progress in the FCA investigation as “nothing short of an insult to the hundreds of thousands of small investors whose lives have been turned upside down, many of which have lost their life savings.” 

“The narrow scope of the investigation and its lateness makes any findings the FCA now comes up with woefully late and utterly meaningless,” they added.

The letter went on to describe the decision to allow Mr Woodford to remain on the FCA’s register - allowing him to continue investment business - as “shameful” and said that it “makes a complete mockery” of the new set of codes in the UK aimed at raising the bar in terms of finance managers’ conduct and making management accountability more “rigorous and transparent”.

Pictured top: The JFSC expressed disappointment that Mr Woodford had not made clear his new Jersey venture was "subject to regulatory approval".