This is a must read Vince Cable former leader of the Liberal DemocratsReads like a rip roaring tale of a corporate high wire act John McDonnell former Shadow Chancellor Should be sold with a bottle of bloodpressure pills Edward Lucas The Times The proud owner of a sprawling 14m estate in the Cotswolds boasting a stable of eventing horses a fleet of supercars and neighbouring the royal family Neil Woodford was the most celebrated and successful British investor of his generation. He spent years beating the market betting against the dot com bubble in the 1990s and the banks before the financial crash in 2008 making blockbuster returns for his investors and earning himself a reputation of the man who made Middle England rich.But in 2019 after a stream of poorlyjudged investments Woodfords asset management company collapsed trapping hundreds of thousands of rainyday savers in his flagship fund and hanging 3.6 billion in the balance. In Built on a Lie Financial Times reporter Owen Walker reveals the disastrous failings of Woodford the greed at the heart of his operation the flaws of an industry in thrall to its star performers and the dangers of limited regulation.