The fund raising – the largest ever in the UK retail space – means manager Neil Woodford (pictured) is now running a total of £5.25bn in assets when his £3.65bn St James’s Place mandates are taken into account.

Unusually, Woodford’s marketing work during the offer period was largely done for him by brokers eager to advertise the new fund to clients.

Other inflows have come from multi-managers switching their holdings: Hargreaves Lansdown said last month it would transfer a £400m stake in Woodford’s former Invesco Perpetual Income funds to his new portfolio.

Having begun trading at the end of last week, Woodford Equity Income has now made its first investments.

These include positions in some of the manager’s longstanding favourite stocks, including outsourcer Capita and power company Drax, and smaller companies such as Revolymer.

In the case of tech firms such as the latter, Woodford has bought stakes at the same time as his former company, Invesco Perpetual, has been selling down positions.

Woodford IM said the manager has so far invested 95% of his portfolio so far.

The company has committed to publishing a full list of holdings every month on the Woodford IM website.