Link teases third payment to Woodford investors as Acacia proceeds drip through

ACD has £58m from sale of assets to Acacia but that value is set to increase over next three weeks

Neil Woodford

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Link Fund Solutions is poised to make a third payment to investors trapped in the former Woodford Equity Income fund as it starts to received proceeds from the sale of healthcare assets to Acacia Research Corporation.

In its latest update to investors, the authorised corporate director said as at 22 July the fund had £58m of cash to distribute, but this value is set to increase over the next three weeks as further amounts are received from Acacia.

Link said it made sense to make a single distribution of all those amounts rather than a series of smaller distributions over a short period of time.

It will therefore update investors on the total amount for the third capital distribution on 19 August and on the amount they will individually receive on 21 August, with payment to follow shortly after.

Already, £2.1bn was paid out to investors in January and a further £143m distributed in March.

See also: Link defends reported £122m hole in Woodford fund accounts

In June Link revealed it had reached an agreement with Acacia for the sale of up to 19 of the fund’s healthcare assets for up to £223.9m. But Link came in for criticism for letting further middleman chip into Woodford investor savings after it was revealed Acacia was flipping certain stocks at a profit within a short time frame.

Link noted under the deal with Acacia the portfolio of assets will individually transfer at different times over a period of up to six months. But it said as the transaction is for the sale of a portfolio of the fund’s shareholdings, rather than a series of sales of individual assets, investors should judge the transaction as a whole.

“You should be aware that reports relating to the values attributed to the transfer of single assets forming part of the portfolio can be misleading,” it added.

See also: Woodford investors endure ‘another kick in the teeth’ as Synairgen quintuples