Neil Woodford’s Latest Buys and Sells: GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR) (GSK), AstraZeneca plc (ADR) (AZN)

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In ditching the phone giant, he netted proceeds of more than 500 million pounds. I calculate he sold at an average price of 168 pence. The shares remain at around the same level, and the P/E on forecast earnings for the year to March 2013 is 11, falling nearer to 10 next year. The expected dividend yield is comfortably above 6%.

Oil blowout
Woodford has been out of the U.K.’s oil super-majors, Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) (NYSE:RDS.A) and BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP), since before the latter’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. However, he had kept faith with gas specialist BG Group plc (LON:BG) — until recently.

The fund’s entire holding in BG has now been disposed of, raising close to 500 million pounds. My sums put the average sell price at 1,261 pence a share. Newsflow since has been uninspiring and BG’s shares are currently trading at 1,145 pence, putting the group on a forward P/E of over 14 with a skinny dividend yield of 1.5%.

Not so sweet

Tate & Lyle PLC (LON:TATE) is another blue chip Woodford has sold out of completely. Proceeds from the disposal of the sweeteners and ingredients group amounted to over 160 million pounds at what I calculate to be an average sell price of 627 pence a share.

The sale of Tate doesn’t look too timely at the moment because the shares are currently changing hands for 825 pence — up over 30% since Woodford sold. Tate’s forward P/E of around 15 and yield of 3.2% are broadly in line with the market average.

The article Neil Woodford’s Latest Buys and Sells originally appeared on Fool.com.

G.A. Chester does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article. The Motley Fool owns shares in Tesco and Smith & Nephew and has recommended Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline.

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