The world’s greatest investors: Neil Woodford

Like any good value investor, says Matthew Partridge, Neil Woodford is prepared to wait for his returns.

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Neil Woodford: shunning expensive shares

Neil Woodford, 56, graduated from Exeter University in 1981. He also studied at London Business School. In 1988, after working for various City employers, he became a fund manager for Invesco Perpetual, running several of its funds. In 2014 he left to set up his own company, Woodford Investment Management.

What was his strategy?

He also believes in holding a concentrated portfolio of carefully selected, high-conviction stocks, rather than spreading wealth thinly over hundreds of stocks. His portfolios also have lower turnover than most comparable funds.

Did it work?

Despite an erratic performance after the financial crisis, his funds held a total of £33bn in assets by the time he left Invesco Perpetual. Over the last two years, his CF Woodford Equity Income Fund has done well, returning just under 20%, compared with an average of 9.7% for similar funds.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri