Woodford Lures Ex-Standard Life Exec As Chair

The fund management firm headed by Neil Woodford, the City's most prominent investor, is to name a former Standard Life (LSE: SL.L - news) director to a key governance position amid growing scrutiny of the sector.

Sky News has learnt that Woodford Investment Management is lining up Marcia Campbell, who holds a portfolio of roles in the financial services sector, as the next chair of its oversight board.

Ms Campbell, who spent two decades at Standard Life in roles including running its operations in the Asia-Pacific region, will replace Mary Reilly, who is stepping down two years after Woodford's launch.

While corporate structures including limited liability partnerships are not required to have oversight boards, Woodford has had one in place since 2014.

Ms Campbell is a non-executive director of Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's Bank, Murray International Trust and Canada Life.

Her appointment to the Woodford role is in the process of being finalised, and may be the subject of an announcement in the coming days, according to industry sources.

Mr Woodford's firm has been a magnet for investors' money since it was launched by the former Invesco Perpetual fund manager.

Last week, it announced plans for a second equity fund for retail investors to be invested across global stock markets.

In a blog-post on Monday, Mr Woodford said he stood by his earlier belief that he "could not construct a convincing long term economic argument that supported either 'remain' or 'leave'" in next week's European Union referendum.

The star manager said that wider macroeconomic trends such as excessive government and consumer debt, rapidly ageing demographics, weak productivity growth and the unfunded retirement commitments prevalent in Western democracies all posed a greater risk to UK economic growth than its membership of the EU.

"These problems will not be resolved by our membership of the EU; nor will they be resolved through leaving it," he wrote.

In a statement responding to an enquiry about Ms Campbell's appointment, a Woodford spokesman said: "We will shortly be announcing the appointment of a new chairman to our Oversight Board, who will replace outgoing chair Mary Reilly.

"Mary has stepped down from the role to scale down her non-executive commitments, some of which are overseas, and is working with us to ensure a smooth transition.

"We would like to thank Mary for the crucial role she has played since launch in developing our procedures and processes (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) ."