Mark Barnett, who is Neil Woodford's successor at Invesco Perpetual, sold £100 million's worth of Woodford's favourite stocks - including M&A-targeted UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca - as he repositioned his £1.4 billion Edinburgh Investment Trust in the first quarter.

The trust's annual report, which Wednesday disclosed its holdings to the end of March, revealed that Barnett substantially trimmed holdings in AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and BT Group, which were Woodford's top three holdings at the end of January, in the following two months.