Neil Woodford's flagship Woodford Equity Income fund has shed roughly £1bn of assets since the start of 2018.
It is a combination of weak investment sentiment toward the fund manager and the recent downturn in markets that has seen the fund shrink from £8.2bn to £7.2bn at close of play yesterday (7 February).
Mr Woodford's fund has lost 8.6 per cent this year to date, much worse than the 5.2 per cent loss for the average fund in the sector in the same time period.
Mr Woodford suffered a significant loss when his shares in outsourcing company Capita halved in value at the start of the year.
He has also seen significant investors in his funds withdraw their capital over the past year, including Jupiter, Architas and Aviva.
The run of poor performance has stretched for about 18 months, with the fund having lost 8 per cent over the past year.
On a three-year view, the fund has gained 5 per cent, while the sector average return was 15 per cent.
Mr Woodford has taken a profoundly contrarian view on the UK market, shunning stocks he believes are exposed to the uptick in global economic growth, such as miners, and investing in companies, such as banks, that he believes will perform well as the negative sentiment towards the UK economy shifts and becomes more positive.
david.thorpe@ft.com
