The administrator overseeing Neil Woodford's defunct Equity Income fund said almost £16m has been paid out in fees to BlackRock and other third parties to offload the remaining assets in the former flagship product.

It is almost exactly a year since Woodford, once the poster boy of the UK asset management industry, was sacked by fund administrator Link Find Solutions as manager of the Equity Income fund, culminating in his decision to close the door on his eponymous investment empire.