As part of the reshaping he has started to introduce FTSE companies from the UK Strategic Income Fund into the income portfolios.
“The portfolios are not 100% how I want them but it was never going to be a revolutionary change,” he said in a webcall Thursday morning.
Tobacco at 30.5% and pharmaceuticals at 15.01% remain two of his top favoured sectors across the income portfolios.
“I’m very comfortable holding a large weighting in both, but I have trimmed the weightings somewhat since taking over. My stocks are not just UK stocks, I hold overseas stocks in these sectors too,” Barnett said.
He still is positioned in mid-caps, despite a hovering negative sentiment around the stocks.
“To generalise 250 stocks in ludicrous. As a generalisation the index does look more expensive than it has been but investors need to be vigilant as in all other areas of the market. I still see selective value in mid-caps.”
When it comes to the day-to-day running of the funds, Barnett said the core team remains similar to what it has been since Neil Woodford and a handful of others departed.
“We are taking on two or three new hires but it will remain a small team. I’ve just made an offer for the position of senior analyst on the UK large cap side, and we are recruiting a similar role in UK small cap,” he said.
His own role has changed somewhat:
“I have more marketing to do and increased internal responsibilities in the team, which is adds up to about 20% of my time. The 80% bulk of what I do is managing the funds, which frankly I enjoy doing the most.”
While redemptions have been seen, the portfolios have has not been affected by redemptions, he added.
Woodford Investment Management
Meanwhile, noon today saw one of the biggest fund launches in the industry. Right now, Neil Woodford is officially investing the money he has collected since the investor window for the CF Woodford Equity Income Fund opened on 2 June.
Unsurprisingly, much of the anticipation around the fund launch has centred on how much Woodford's new firm would raisefor the fund.
“It could be hundreds of millions or even a billion – it’s hard to tell,” according to Richard Troue, head of VCT research at Hargreaves Lansdowne.
In a fund launch statement, chief executive of Woodford Investment Management Craig Newman said:
"We don’t believe it would be sensible to announce the total amount raised for the fund immediately for reasons of market sensitivity and to protect investors in the fund. However, we will announce this figure once the portfolio has largely taken shape and we expect the portfolio to be substantially invested by the end of June.”
He added: "It is our intention to disclose the entire portfolio on a monthly basis on our website and we expect to commence disclosure in July.”
Woodford has been very vocal about his intentions for the fund, saying repeatedly that the new fund will be very much "business as usual" from a strategy point of view. And, as a result, the industry is not expecting to see anything too radical in his choice of investments.
“We don’t expect him to take long to deploy the money,” Troue said.
“It’s difficult to say 100% but within the first few days he will have his portfolio positioned as he wants it. He likes large liquid companies so he shouldn’t have too much trouble investing in them.”
