Zurich is closing the Woodford UK Equity Income fund to new business
29 April 2019
Zurich is removing the Woodford UK Equity Income fund from the Sterling and Zurich panel propositions
As part of our commitment to customers, we regularly review the performance and ongoing suitability of the funds available through our products. We call this ‘funds governance’ and if a fund continues to fall short of these standards, we’ll withdraw it from our fund range.
Our funds governance process has identified that over an extended period of time, the Woodford UK Equity Income fund has failed to meet its own performance targets.
We’re also concerned about the ability of the fund to manage liquidity effectively i.e. ensuring there are enough assets in the fund to manage investment flows into and out of the fund.
As a result, we’ve decided to withdraw it from our range of panel funds.
Funds and Products affected by closure
This affects customers invested in these funds through the following products:
Zurich Pension
Zurich Woodford UK Equity Income ZP
Sterling Investment Bond
Sterling Woodford UK Equity Income
Sterling Woodford UK Equity Income 2
Sterling ISA and Sterling Investment Account
LF Woodford UK Equity Income C Inc
How does this affect customers investing in these funds?
Existing customers can remain invested in the funds. If they pay into the funds by direct debit, they can continue to do so. However, we’ll no longer accept increases to direct debits, additional lump sum investments or switches into the funds.
The decision to withdraw these funds for new investments does not necessarily affect their ongoing suitability for existing investors.
How will we communicate this closure?
We have written to you with a list of their clients invested in these funds. We’ll also write to your clients but if any of them contact us, we’ll strongly advise them to contact you for more information.
Please note, if you have clients invested in this fund through a Zurich Portfolio then you need to know that we don’t review these funds in the same way as we do for our panel funds and they are still available to new customers.
Zurich Pension customer letter
Sterling Bond customer letter
Sterling ISA/Investment Account customer letter