Juno Spoke With Neil Woodford as Part of Due Diligence

(Bloomberg) --

Alternative asset manager Juno Capital spoke with disgraced fund manager Neil Woodford as part of due diligence on assets he once managed.

Craig Newman, who co-founded Woodford Investment Management with Woodford, also spoke with Juno, the firm said in a statement.

Juno said media reports that Woodford and Newman had taken on advisory roles with the firm were untrue.

“Juno has been considering whether any of the ex-Woodford assets could be of interest to its family office connections and has spoken to Neil and Craig for their perspective as previous managers of these assets,” according to the statement.

This comes less than a year after the collapse of Woodford’s business empire sent shock waves through London’s financial markets. It was a remarkable reversal of fortune for a man once known as one of the U.K.’s best stock pickers. Everything began unraveling for Woodford when he suspended withdrawals in his flagship fund in June 2019 because he couldn’t sell his holdings quickly enough to meet redemption requests. He wound down the business in October.

Woodford and Newman made a trip to China in December to meet investors interested in early-stage assets, Bloomberg reported.

Woodford built his success by investing in large- and mid-cap companies across tobacco, technology and other stocks. He eventually began investing in smaller and less liquid companies and would often write checks to fledgling biotechnology firms when they were in the risky, uncertain period of testing out new ideas. The collapse of his business sent a blow to the British biotech industry late last year.

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