Neil Woodford beefs up Royal Mail stake

It's just emerged that on 11 June, superstar fund manager Neil Woodford snapped up over 2 million Royal Mail shares for his Woodford Equity Income fund. That takes his stake in the resurgent postal delivery firm to 51.6 million shares, or 5.2% of the company.

Royal Mail shares go ex-dividend on 2 July, which means a cheque for £7.4 million will be making its way to Woodford HQ at the end of next month.

Woodford began building his stake last year and snapped up shares during the summer at a time when the shares had traded well below 400p. They floated at 330p in 2013 and traded north of 600p before falling out of favour. They traded as high as 508p Friday.

In his Mansion House speech this week, Chancellor George Osborne said the government's final interest in Royal Mail is in the process of being sold – it has just received £750 million for half its remaining 30% stake.

Earlier Friday, we reported how analysts at JP Morgan had upgraded their view on Royal Mail shares from 'neutral' to 'overweight' and hiked the price target from 515p to 605p. The decision comes a month after Post NL abandoned its UK direct delivery ambitions through subsidiary, Whistl - formerly TNT Post.

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