Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK fund supermarket, has dropped two top-performing Lindsell Train funds from its influential Wealth 50 list in order to protect its “independence”, following a rise in the amount of Hargreaves’ own stock that is held by the two funds.

The Bristol-headquartered company, which has come under fire for its close relationship to beleaguered UK stock picker Neil Woodford, said the decision to remove the Lindsell Train UK Equity and Lindsell Train Global Equity funds from its list of favourite products at the end of July was not “a reflection of their performance”.