By Simon Jessop, Muvija M and Carolyn Cohn
LONDON (Reuters) - Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HRGV) said nearly 300,000 clients are exposed to Neil Woodford's suspended equity income fund, piling further pressure on the investment platform over its heavy public backing of the fund since it was launched.
In a letter to the UK's treasury committee published on Wednesday, Hargreaves CEO Chris Hill said 133,769 clients had a direct holding worth 1.1 billion pounds in the suspended 3.7 billion pounds ($4.65 billion) LF Woodford Equity Income Fund.
Adding in those with an indirect exposure through Hargreaves' various fund-of-fund products put the total number of clients affected at 291,520, with a collective exposure of 1.6 billion pounds.
The scale of the exposure is likely to raise pressure on Hargreaves and particularly its 'best-buy' list of funds, which many clients rely on. Woodford's fund was first included in 2014 and only taken off on the day trading in it was suspended.
Shares in Hargreaves were down 1% at 1024 GMT, lagging a 0.3% fall in the wider FTSE 100. Hargreaves shares have lost nearly 15% in value since the fund was suspended on June 3.
Hill was responding to questions raised by the chair of the committee, Nicky Morgan, about Hargreaves' connections to the suspended fund and comes a day after Britain's markets regulator opened a formal investigation.
At the heart of the probe by the Financial Conduct Authority are the circumstances surrounding the suspension of the fund and the handling of its stakes in a number of private companies.
The FCA said on Tuesday that it had been in contact with the authorized manager of the fund, Link Fund Solutions, in early 2018 after it twice breached rules around its stake in unlisted companies - something Hill said Hargreaves was unaware of.
"We met with the fund manager that month and urged him to address the issue. The manager committed to us that he would make no new investments into unquoted businesses from that point," Hill said in the letter to Morgan.
"We have subsequently... found out that Woodford twice breached this limit in February and March 2018. They did not inform us of this on either occasion."
Hill said since adding the Woodford fund to its 'best-buy' list, Hargreaves staff had met or conducted calls with Woodford and his team 31 times to discuss the portfolio and his investment process.