Alistair Lennard, the fund manager whose UK equity portfolio may now cost Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) £130m (€213m), has stepped into the dock to defend his then employer in the Unilever v MLIM trial.
In his written witness statement, Lennard had said that he was aware that positions in the UK equity portfolio were significantly different from the index. This was a reflection of his conviction that the particular stocks would do well: "At that time I believed it wholly improbable that these shares would fall with such persistence and to such an extent [as they did]."
