Invesco Ltd (NYSE:IVZ) is to disband the team that made Neil Woodford an investment name before the subsequent setbacks that beset the stock picker when he set up on his own.
At one time, Woodford was running Invesco’s equity income fund with a value of £33 billion but this has shrunk to £6.8 billion currently due to the flow of money out of UK shares and abroad.
Woodford, who left Invesco in 2013, became a star at the group after it acquired Perpetual in 2000 where he was working at the time and by focusing out of favour dividend payers.
After attracting huge sums when it launched in 2014, Woodford’s fund was gated in 2019 following a wave of withdrawals and a disappointing performance.
Invesco said it will merge its UK equities team with its European arm to create a Pan European Equity operation.
“The two teams have always worked closely and shared many investment resources to leverage their combined intellectual property at both the fund management and analyst level,“ John Surplice, head of Emea Equities at Invesco, told the FT.
“We are simply formalising this collaborative approach further.”