A multi-manager investor has picked Woodford Patient Capital Trust to outperform in 2019 due to its stake in “bloody interesting companies” as the star fund manager announces a trio of milestones for the closed-ended fund.
In a regulatory filing on Monday morning, the £961.8m investment trust announced updates from its holdings in Immunocore, Mission Therapeutics and Spin Memory.
On Monday, Immunocore, the largest of the holdings, accounting for 5.06% of the trust in October, announced a $100m collaboration with a subsidiary of the Roche Group, Genentech. The companies will work on the first human trials of a cancer treatment that targets tumours by activating white blood cells.
Last week, Mission Therapeutics joined forces with AbbVie in the research and preclinical treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, while Spin Memory raised $52m in series B fundraising. The companies represent 1.31% and 0.41% of the investment trust.
It follows the initial public offering of Autolus in June, which has seen its stock almost double in the intervening period since it was listed on the Nasdaq.
‘Bloody interesting companies’
Just last week, BMO Managed Portfolio trust manager Peter Hewitt said he had been adding to Neil Woodford’s trust, although it still does not feature in his top-10 holdings. Hewitt picked the fund to be one of his top performers in 2019 “even if market conditions are quite difficult”.
Woodford’s profile had contributed to the trust’s discount, which was trading at 14.1% last week, he said.
“He evokes reactions in people where, let’s just say, they are more negative than positive.” He continued: “If you strip that away and just look objectively at what’s underneath the bonnet there’s some bloody interesting companies there.”
He acknowledged historic performance issues with the trust but said since summer updates on underlying companies had been almost all positive.
Woodford Patient Capital Trust was the worst performer in the BMO Managed Growth Trust’s last financial year, falling 21% in the period to 31 May 2018. It accounted for 1.6% of the portfolio at the time.
The growth portfolio in the BMO investment trust represents £70.9m and is trading at a 2.1% premium, according to the AIC. Hewitt also runs the £59.7m income portfolio, which runs at a 2.7% premium.
