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The crisis at Woodford Investment Management was no more anxious than in Maidstone, 30 km south of London, county seat of Kent County.
The council triggered the crisis last week when pension fund managers decided to ask for their money back.
When Woodford received Kent's request to recover £ 263m from its Equity Income vehicle, he decided to freeze the flagship fund, managed by star manager Neil Woodford, to restructure the portfolio.
Some of the 135,000 members of the board's pension fund started making panicked calls to ask if their money was in danger.
"We want to know who is responsible for this," said a 61-year-old mental health officer from the local authority.
Kent County Council Chief Paul Carter said President Woodford's mandate was only 4 percent of total pension funds and called the fund's growth from £ 4.4 billion to $ 6.4 billion. £ billion in the last four years "spectacular".
"Our record of knowing our bunions is pretty good," he said. "We should not overreact to these events."
Nevertheless, the board is well placed for difficult investments, including a £ 50 million deposit in Icelandic banks – the largest of a UK board – put at risk by the country's financial crisis in 2008. This took nine years, but the council has money back.
For its investment in Woodford, which remains stuck, KCC has been advised by Mercer, one of the world's largest providers of pension advice. Carter said Mercer had provided "very good" advice.
Kent County Council is a loyal customer of Mr. Woodford. The local authority pension fund first gave him some of his money in 2007 when he worked at Invesco Perpetual. He remained seven years later with the touted fund manager when he started his own business.
But at the beginning of this year, the relationship began to deteriorate.
Concerns over the performance of Woodford's portfolio had been buzzing since the beginning of 2018, but when they asked for the return of their investment mandate last week, it was too late.
Then, members of Kent's pension fund called the council.
"People were worried and we responded to these concerns," said Dave Shipton, Kent County Council's Financial Strategy Officer.
Unison and GMB, two of the largest unions in the UK, said they received a "continuous stream" of appeals from board employees concerned and criticized the fund's management.
"People do not know where their money goes and how much money is spent on people telling us where to put that money," said Ryan Slaughter, regional organizer for Unison. "There is no union representation at the board level and there is no transparency about the amount of fees paid to fund managers."
GMB Regional Manager Nick Day said members wanted more clarity about investing the rest of KCC's pension fund. "KCC has been worried about this for a while. They can not keep people's minds at ease. "
Barry Lewis, Margate's union advisor, said other opposition advisers had raised concerns about the portfolio at several previous meetings.
"It's reminiscent of casino capitalism," he said of the council's strategy. "It seems to me that all they are interested in are high-risk, high-return investments, and the risk badessment obviously failed on that occasion."
The minutes of the board's pension fund show that the activity in Woodford is causing more and more concern.
In March, the Board asked about why money had been transferred from the Equity Fund to the Woodford Patient Capital Investment Trust without any prior consultation.
Last month, they asked to meet with Mr. Woodford but, believing that their concerns were not sufficiently taken into account, voted unanimously for the money to be returned immediately, said Mr. Shipton.
"We do not know if the decision to suspend the negotiations was related to the board's decision to buy back," the board said in a statement.
Craig Mackinlay, Conservative MP for South Thanet in Kent, said: "It's easy to rush into wacky claims that funds are in jeopardy, but the underlying investments are still there and still generate dividends. " be questioned 'about the quality of supervision exercised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
"There is no reason to think that capital is at risk. However, the leeway to access it, at will, has already been reached, "said Mr Mackinlay, who talks about experience: he has £ 3,000 invested in the fund.
The mental health worker, who is currently working for the board and receives a deferred pension, also questions the investment choices of the best-known stock-selection shareholder in Britain.
"Look to whom Woodford has invested – Kier!" She says. "I do not know anything about investing, but I do not know how to touch companies with a barge pole."
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