Neil Woodford

Neil Woodford's St James's Place mandate is in line for a rapid windfall from the manager's investment in Daisy Group after its chief executive said he was plotting a £500m buyout of his own company.

Neil Woodford has added a new position in Royal Mail to his £2.4bn Woodford Equity Income fund as the company's share price began to falter this year.

Equity Income fund managers are yet to warm to the tobacco sector, despite a strong 2014 for stocks driven by M&A and their defensive qualities.

Woodford Investment Management was the best-selling fund group by active sales in the second quarter of this year, after raising £1.6bn for its Equity Income fund.

Net retail sales of UK equity income funds hit a record high of £1.4bn last month, according to the Investment Management Association, as Neil Woodford's new fund provided a boon to the sector.

Jupiter's Merlin multi-manager team have added Neil Woodford's equity income fund to their portfolios as they back the manager's new project from launch.

BENCHMARKING

Inertia hits even the largest players

The St James's Place UK High Income fund and two other portfolios have become the latest to exit the IMA UK Equity Income sector for failing to meet yield requirements.

Talk about an impending interest rate hike is building in the UK, despite recent mixed messages from Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. However, one of the UK's leading investors, Neil Woodford, is not expecting an imminent rise, and these three charts...