Hargreaves Lansdown founder Peter Hargreaves attacks Neil Woodford in an interview with the Sunday Times.
He doesn’t mince his words about what we might call - diplomatically - a lack of openness about performance. He also attacks HL for not taking action earlier.
Hargreaves remains a major shareholder at HL but has sold out quite a lot of his holdings. It would be interesting to know what HL's management and other shareholders in this FTSE 100 listed firm make of his fierce words. Is it helping investors in Woodford either? Indeed one wonders whether m’learned friends will get involved. Maybe Woodford is a little too busy to contemplate action. We also link to City AM for coverage without a paywall.
SJP can’t seem to keep out of the news. This isn’t front page news for national newspapers but is a big trade story. Adviser firms are now to get immediate access to the vulnerable consumers course as Professional Adviser reports. Previously other advisers would have to have waited until an SJP 'pilot stage' was completed. I hear of behind the scenes ructions at the CII.
SJP advisers will pay less to the CII if they decide sit the new qualification unit covering vulnerable consumers. The reason given is that SJP cash helped developed the course. Will that be enough to satisfy irate advisers or will this prompt another series of complaints?
This is very good news for AJ Bell and for journalists looking for explanations about pensions as they hire Rachel Vahey.
A DFM report from Rathbones and Core Data suggests that 72 per cent of advisers said the investment performance of client portfolios improved post-adoption, with a further 66 per cent seeing improvements to risk/return profiles. Rathbones Mike Webb is obviously keen to get the message out there.
He also suggests advisers embracing DFMs are earning more. Of course, I have seen advisers make a strong case for why they run their own CIPs. But this seems like a useful report for advisers to test their ideas against.
