Calls grow for FCA to end deafening silence amid Woodford update

Pressure continues to mount on the Financial Conduct Authority to provide answers to investors after a recent letter to investors from Link Fund Solutions warned investors in the former Woodford Equity Income fund may have to wait until at least 2023 to see the completion of the sale.

Head of personal finance at interactive investor Moira O'Neill (pictured) said the regulator owed investors an answer soon to help provide "some sort of closure".

"We were expecting news from the regulator by the end of 2021, but the deafening silence has continued well into 2022."

Link warns Woodford Equity Income investors wind up may enter third year

She added that the authorised corporate director's letter added insult to injury for investors suffering at the drawn-out process and that it only added more questions "when all people want is answers".

"Excruciatingly, there was no acknowledgement of investors' pain in the letter," O'Neill said. "This is people's hopes and dreams for retirement dashed, and we'd like to see more understanding of this."

Founder of the True and Fair Campaign Gina Miller also decried the "deafening silence" from the regulator, arguing the investigation should have been handed to an independent party from the outset and include a review of the FCA's regulatory involvement.

She described the handling of the fund wind up as "shambolic" and labelled its timeline "a complete disgrace.

"It is a great shame that Link did not at the outset split the fund into two, selling the easily realisable assets and putting the other assets into an investment trust," Miller added. "This would have led to a measured sale of assets and would have avoided the destruction of value, as well as providing investors with a realisable asset."

Treasury Committee presses FCA to conclude Woodford investigation

Cliff Weight, director of ShareSoc, which has endorsed Leigh Day's legal claim against Link Fund Solutions for its part in the collapse, said the £16m increase in asset value of the remaining fund is "welcome", but noted it is "small fry in relation to the £1 billion of losses incurred by the failure to maintain liquidity in Woodford WEIF".

Head of investment research at AJ Bell Ryan Hughes noted that investors have now waited 15 months since their last capital distribution, which demonstrates "just how challenging it is to try and sell the remaining assets into a market where the buyers hold all the cards".

"This will be extremely disappointing for investors locked in the fund," he said. "It seems that little progress has been made on disposing the remaining assets in the fund since Link's last update just over three months ago."