Woodford: Investors have lost faith in the mining sector

Invesco Perpetual's Neil Woodford, manager of the group's £25bn suite of UK income products, has described his heavy underweight position to the mining sector as one of the biggest drivers behind his outperformance over the past year.

Woodford, writing to shareholders as his £1.3bn Edinburgh investment trust reported its results for the full year to March 2013, said risk-on investors are starting to sell out of the sector. He said investors have lost faith as mining companies continue to erode investor capital by embarking on aggressive acquisition sprees. He said his zero weighting to the sector is one of the factors behind the trust outperforming the FTSE All Share over the year to the end of March, delivering a 22.4% NAV return, ahead of its benchmark return of 16.8%. "The company's zero weighting in the mini...