Neil Woodford has revealed his entire portfolio of holdings for the recently launched Woodford Equity Income fund.
Before the launch of the fund last month, Woodford said that “Woodford Funds as a company will be a very different offering – but expect business as usual when it comes to stock selection and the running of the new income fund.”
Woodford has long been a champion of both pharmaceutical and tobacco stocks, and the new fund’s portfolio does not disappoint. The top 10 stocks released last week revealed AstraZeneca (AZN) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) were the top two holdings, with Roche (RO) coming in sixth position. But some investors may be surprised at just how high a conviction Woodford has in the sector – a further 14 health care stocks are in the fund’s portfolio.
In fact health care makes up nearly a third of the entire portfolio, with better known names such as Smith & Nephew (SN.) and Sanofi (SAN) sitting alongside stem cell business ReNeuron (RENE) and Oxfordshire drug company e-Therapeutics (ETX). Woodford Funds is based just 13.5 miles away in the same county, which is home to 50 high tech and innovation businesses.
The fund manager has not had to travel far to find minority holding Velocys (VLS) either – the only energy company in the fund.
Financial stocks have also proved popular with the income fund manager. He revealed he had bought HSBC (HSBA) last summer – his first investment in a bank in a decade, and has added several specialist insurers to the bucket.
Woodford has also invested in controversial industrial companies Serco (SRP) and G4S (GFS) – both of which have hit the headlines for poor management of contracts and being a chaotic organisation. G4S infamously botched security at the 2012 London Olympics, underestimating demand resulting in service men and women having to plug the gap.
HSBC is not the only stock to benefit from Woodford’s revised opinion.
"I have invested in Next (NXT), the retailer. It is a stock that I haven't owned since 1999 and at first glance, this investment decision doesn't seem to fit comfortably with my cautious outlook for the UK consumer economy,” he said last week.
“But it is a great example of how I think a business should operate from the perspective of capital allocation. It has been an outstanding business over the past 10 years despite a very challenging consumer environment, delivering steady growth on a per share basis thanks to a very disciplined share buyback policy. I've missed a couple of opportunities to buy into it previously but I believe it can continue to deliver over the next 10 years. It out competes its nearest rival M&S and has a very successful online business.”