Investors in the former Woodford Equity Income unit trust missed out on a major windfall on Monday as Synairgen PLC (LON:SNG) shares soared more than 550% but the fund's shares had been sold six weeks earlier.
Link Fund Solutions, administrators of the collapsed fund, sold 19 holdings in life sciences companies to US investor Acacia Research as a job lot in early June.
READ: Synairgen says trial results signal "major breakthrough" in treatment of severely ill COVID-19 patients
The shares were sold at a price well below the level at which the stocks were being valued in the fund.
At the time of the Link sale, the market value of the Synairgen stake was worth £8.1mln.
On Monday, the shares rocketed over 550% to almost 240p, making the stake would have been worth more than £50mln, after the company said positive results from a clinical trial of its drug to tackle the severe symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) “could signal a major breakthrough in the treatment of hospitalised patients”.
On June 4 last year, the Woodford fund, since been renamed the LF Equity Income Fund, was suspended after a surge in redemptions after an extended period of disappointing performance and controversy over high levels of unquoted stocks.