Revealing his latest portfolio moves, the manager (pictured) said in an update he had offloaded his £3.1bn Woodford Equity Income fund’s position in the consumer goods giant after its rating became too high compared to other opportunities.

Mitchell Fraser-Jones, who works alongside Woodford on the fund, said: “We exited Reckitt Benckiser, a share which has been present in Neil’s portfolios for over a decade.

“We continue to view Reckitts as a great business with a very strong management team and an excellent product line-up. Such a high quality business deserves a high market rating but the shares have recently become too expensive to continue to justify their position in the portfolio.”

Shares in Reckitt have gained a staggering 281.6 per cent over the last decade, compared with the FTSE 100’s gain of just 40.3 per cent.

The fund had 1.5 per cent of its of assets in Reckitt stock at the end of August.

Elsewhere, Woodford has added to other long-term favourites including British American Tobacco and G4S, both of whihc he said had seen “undeserved” share price weakness in September.