Woodford boosts Wm Morrison stake (and leads £10m tech cash call)

Invesco Perpetual's Neil Woodford has become the largest shareholder in supermarket Wm Morrison, and backed a technology firm Xeros' investment round with a £6 million commitment.

Using fellow asset manager BlackRock's sale of the stock, Invesco Perpetual's investment head is understood to have upped his Morrisons position from 5.33% to 7.69%. 

According to the Sunday Telegraph, BlackRock previously owned more than 10% of the stock, however it sold down its holding in January, leaving it with a position of just over 4.22%.

Woodford (pictured) last year decided to exit his position in Morrisons' rival Tesco and told shareholders it was not the defensive bet that he had hoped.

Initially, Morrisons is not expected to defy this trend and on Thursday will report a 2.5% drop in its like-for-like sales, analysts believe.

However longer term, analysts also expect the supermarket's new boss Dalton Philips to step up his turnaround plan with the announcement of a raft of new, smaller stores, as well as an online sales platform for groceries.

Shares in Wm Morrison on Friday closed at 263p, up 1.34% on the day, though still some way off its 52-week high of 320p.

Xeros

Elsewhere in Woodford's High Income and Income portfolios, the fund manager has also added tech holding Xeros.

He and Invesco Perpetual led a £10 million investment drive by the firm, which uses nylon beads to clean clothes using a minimal amount of water.  It targets custom in the $100 billion global laundry industry.

Invesco Perpetual committed £6 million to the firm, while £4 million was raised from IP Group, the Entrepreneurs fund, Enterprise Ventures’ RisingStars II fund, Finance Yorkshire, and Parkwalk Advisors.